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‘Pa’lante’ – Hurray for the Riff Raff | Video Worth Watching

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‘Pa’lante’ Is an Ode to Puerto Rico’s Future

For eight sobering minutes, a new Hurray for the Riff Raff music video follows a working-class Puerto Rican family as they try to rebuild physically and emotionally in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Filmed on the island and starring The Florida Project’s Mela Murder, the video — a vibrant backdrop to the band’s new song “Pa’lante,” sung by Riff Raff’s Nuyorican lead singer Alynda Segarra — captures in brilliant colors the pain and strength of the Puerto Rican people.   [Read more…]

Resistance at Comic-Con: Voting is a Superpower | Progressive Activist Calendar July 20 – 30, 2018

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Local Indivisible chapters have joined forces with democracy-loving cultural celebrities at this year’s Comic-Con as it stages its 48th annual exposition of comics and related popular artforms in San Diego.

A team of more than fifty people has been recruited to register voters for the 2018 midterm elections inside and outside the San Diego Convention Center.  Indie comic book publisher Matteo Pizzolo of Black Mask Studios has partnered with Indivisible to reach guests from all across the country using an app that facilitates online registration.

Using the theme “Voting Is My Superpower”, volunteers in T-shirts and capes are conducting what observers believe is the first time an organized drive has taken place within Comic-Con. The drive is nonpartisan.   [Read more…]

Who Does He Think He’s Fooling?

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“No collusion,”
the man, with way more talk
than walk says.
And he flies across
waters to Helsinki
to meet and greet
a Russian of ill repute
who is seen
as our number one enemy,
a man who slapped our country
upside the head
like a Mafia Godfather
putting an underling
in his place,
interfering with a presidential race,
utilizing the wizardry
of technology,
exposing our inability
to think critically,
resulting, tragically,
in a wretched excuse of a human being
ascending to the presidency   [Read more…]

Artificial Horizon | Geo-Poetic Spaces

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The plane
flies West
on automatic pilot

It’s airspeed
suspends
the bleeding bubble of sun
just beneath
our artificial horizon   [Read more…]

These 16-Year-Olds Are Campaigning for the Right to Vote | Video Worth Watching

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Exciting signs from the D.C area: sixteen-year olds are conducting a campaign—Vote16DC—to lower the voting age to sixteen in the District. Four other nearby cities have already lowered the voting age to sixteen for local and School Board races. The D.C. initiative would lower it for federal elections as well. Sentiment in support of the proposition is building. If this movement is successful in D.C., can we expect to see a similar push here in San Diego?   [Read more…]

Racism 101: White Lady Reporter Wants You to Know Black Lives Matter is Coming to National City to Riot

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“…They are demanding answers and they say they are not going to go away until they get them. The groups say next they plan on collaborating with the National Black Lives Matter group and staging riots in the streets if necessary; that is if the National City Police Department doesn’t release police body worn camera [footage] of an incident where a man died in custody.” —NBC 7 Reporter Wendy Fry

UPDATE: “Never mind” says NBC7. “An NBC 7 article referred to demonstrators staging riots in the streets in their pursuit of information. NBC 7 could not attribute that development to a specific community leader and has corrected the text. We greatly regret the error.”

UPDATED UPDATE: The reporter in question is sorry/not sorry

Protests are sometimes loud. They’re always messy. And they’re emotional. They’re challenging for reporters to cover because of the linguistic shorthand used by activists to make their points. 

NBC7’s Wendy Fry takes the cake for decorating her reporting with racist suppositions drawn from the tumultuous protests ongoing at council meetings in National City.
  [Read more…]

‘The Denial Of Facts Runs Counter To Democracy’: Key Moments from Obama’s Mandela Lecture | Video Worth Watching

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Remember when heads of state spoke in measured phrases representing considered thoughts and ideas? Here’s a reminder: some highlights of our previous POTUS delivering the 2018 Nelson Mandela lecture in Johannesburg on July 17th. The full transcript is available at NPR here.   [Read more…]

On Vidkum Quisling’s Birthday, Reflections on Defeating a Trump-Putin Alliance

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“Yay! I get to vote!” isn’t much consolation to somebody living in a tent.

The statements and actions of the President of the United States of America continue to dominate the news following his acquiescence to the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Those who have proclaimed the uproar over hell freezing over in Helsinki as a turning point (the ‘last straw’ seems to be a popular euphemism) fail to acknowledge Trumps many enablers. There will be no miracle. The Trump train will continue to roll.

The path for progressives and people with good intentions worldwide is to see Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as two sides of the same coin. And to understand that a restoration of any of the trappings of traditional Western Democracy cannot occur with a fundamental reorganization of the economy.   [Read more…]

A Tiny Home Update: “The New American Dream” in Progress

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By Orlando Barahona

Politics are the Ultimate Porn: The Art of Political Science is about a distilled and formulaic perversion of The People’s ideals: Politicians and bureaucrats do not provide what we want; they teach us how to desire it. Public officials’ speeches and a charismatic delivery do not guide my direction in assembling a business and housing plan for San Diego because they do not offer clarity in describing the steps to achieve its presentation and success.

A very important North County housing summit is about to be hosted in Escondido, California on July 19th, 2018 by the San Diego North Economic Development Council in conjunction with the Housing You Matters Coalition. When I reached the Coalition’s Facebook page I was told all the speakers were booked and thus my revised business and housing plan could not fit in for this event. That is understandable, but not ideal for me, after I have updated and refined my first plan, published here in 2016. Find out more on the event’s page here. I wasn’t offered the possibility to present the plan at any other time.   [Read more…]

A Very Stable Genius – Randy Rainbow | Video Worth Watching

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Randy Rainbow is a GEE-NEE-YUS! You don’t need to be a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan to appreciate Randy’s inspired digs at our fearless leader’s latest antics (but it helps!). [NSFW – language; Randy can be a bit, well, randy] (h/t to Doug P.)   [Read more…]

In the Wake of Yet Another Scandal, UFCW Local 135 Members Want Their Union Back

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United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 135 president Mickey Kasparian is, once again, in the news. In recent years, prior to becoming embroiled in scandal, Kasparian presented himself as a progressive leader in local politics.

That was before multiple women from the local filed (and subsequently settled) lawsuits against him. That was before he was ‘I Quit/You’re Fired’ as president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. That was before he operated in sync with the ultra-reactionary Lincoln Club to oppose Democrat Nathan Fletcher as a candidate for County Supervisor. That was before he jumped into bed with the National City reactionary mayor’s attempt to derail the candidacy of a progressive Latina.

And that was before the latest scandal triggered by accusations that Kasparian was seeking to avoid having to face his membership in a re-election campaign in the wake of allegations about nearly $700,000 in union funds being used to settle a gender based lawsuit filed by a women with another union.

Phew. Doesn’t sound very progressive, does it?   [Read more…]

LGBTQ+ Activists Dress As Pride Flag at the World Cup in Russia | Video Worth Watching

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There were no Gay Pride events in Russia this week, but activists attending the world Cup events managed to send a message of support by displaying the Pride Flag colors while out in public. Now This presents video documentation of the group displaying the “Hidden Flag” at various locations around the city and interviews Mateo Fernández of Columbia who describes his participation in the event.   [Read more…]

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