Regarding “Jonathan Lash’s” false flag (pun intended) e-mail
May 7, 2013On April 26th, the Hampshire College community received an email from its president, former president of the World Resources Institute Jonathan Lash, that announced his decision to flip the campus American flag upside-down and lower it to half mast. The email articulated that this action was meant as “a two-fold statement: … a reclamation of mourning, and … an act of resistance against the symbolic violence of the American flag.” He went on to make powerful assertions about the coercive ways in which the state mobilizes the flag in order to create a culture in which the state violence of the police and military is condoned, in which mourning over events such as the Boston bombing and 9/11 are channeled into a racist and bloodthirsty patriotism, and in which dissent and alternative reactions to tragedy are repressed and silenced.
Throughout the day, the email spread rapidly over social media and through word of mouth. Dozens of people thanked President Lash for his words of solidarity with those oppressed by state violence. Others marveled that such a statement would come from an administration with a “decades-long streak of complacence with neoliberalism”. A friend of mine who is of Arab descent was thrilled at the statement and sent President Lash a personal letter of thanks saying that she was “more proud than ever to be at Hampshire”.
Halfway through the day, this same friend received a response from the president. It said that he had not written the email. This was accompanied by a campus-wide response that read, “This afternoon someone falsely sent out a message under my name regarding the flag. It was not written by me. Hampshire welcomes discussion and dissent, but not by misrepresentation.” Apparently, student(s) had written the original statement and hacked his account to send it under his name.
The majority of the criticism of the action accused the students responsible for assuming that all in the community shared their sentiments. A subsequent email from the campus IT director asserted that the action had “blatantly trampled the community’s right to debate and arrive at a common position”.
Such a forum for administration-approved “discussion and dissent” was created a few weeks earlier when students facilitated an open dialogue about the campus flag. Numerous international students, some of whose home countries have long histories of colonialist oppression at the hands of U.S. imperialism, expressed outrage and personal discomfort over the flag’s presence on campus. In this discussion, the administration promised to at least partially acknowledge these concerns by putting up an earth flag on earth day and leaving it up permanently. The earth flag flew for one day and was removed.
The argument that all differing opinions concerning the American flag are valid and must be given institutional weight completely misunderstands mechanisms of oppression and destroys the prospect of solidarity. It is the responsibility of the institution and all those who benefit from U.S colonialism (via white privilege, class privilege, settler status…etc) to support those oppressed by this legacy of violence. The personal patriotism of some individuals should not obscure the real violence committed on the world and members of our community under the symbol of the flag.
Those arguing in favor of the American flag have significant power over those opposed. They have the power of the state, the power of a long history of colonial genocide, and the power of the continued legacy of white supremacy. They also have the power of the administration which continues flying the flag without the consent of the community. Advocating for a “common position” in this regard would inevitably involve compromise on the part of the oppressed. This is not solidarity. This is the perpetuation of racist and colonialist dominance and oppression in the tradition of liberal “democracy”.
Sending the email was a powerful act of resistance used to expose the oppressive nature of institutional power at Hampshire. The students responsible rejected the channels of resistance established for them by the administration and claimed the authority of the president in order to subvert that very authority. By releasing a statement that spoke forcefully and directly against state violence, the students exposed the administration for being complicit with that violence by espousing an empty rhetoric of commitment to some vague notion of “diversity” and “social justice”. The email challenged the administration and the campus to transcend the tradition of mere lip-service (http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/INSIDE_Spring_2013_5.2.1.pdf) and work instead toward a tradition of true solidarity with those oppressed by the state.
President Lash failed this challenge. His response did not engage with the argument of the forged email whatsoever, and the American flag continues to proudly fly over the center of Hampshire’s campus.
(via thepeoplesrecord)
Share the news: Our economy added 176,000 private-sector jobs last month, while unemployment dipped to its lowest rate since December 2008. http://at.wh.gov/kGdc9
Share the news - Barack Obama is a war criminal.
Share the news - poor people don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re still jobless or over-worked & underpaid and yes, poor.
Share the news - we want a private-sector DEATH. We want private-sector abolition!
Share the news - it was a really bad idea for the White House to get a Tumblr. You are not welcome here.
Share the news!
Why would you want to get rid of the private sector when that’s the sector that actually produces the majority of jobs and actually produces money rather than spends it?
Because of this silly little idea we value called democracy. Because in the private sector, driven not by the will of the public or the well-being of the people, but rather by the undemocratic profit-motive, terrible things happen.
A few examples from the last couple of weeks:
- Private fossil-fuels companies are able to literally high-jack our natural resources and destroy our air, water, and health without recourse. (Think Progress) If our productive sector was public, and not private (aka: capitalism was abolished), then we could vote at our workplaces to prevent these types of terrible decisions that are so bad for most of us but so good for just a few.
- Factory owners/capitalists are able to make unsafe decisions about work conditions, resulting in their over-worked, underpaid, exhausted, exploited wage-slaves dying by the hundreds as a direct result. (The Guardian)
- Media is purchased by corporate owners who prevent fair & honest coverage about the terrible decisions the ruling class makes for the public. (The Nation)
One of the many problems with a productive sector driven by competition, instead of democratic will, is that corporations eventually win those competitions. Competing businesses eat each other up, and then a few large corporations, led by a few capitalist oligarchs, purchase the democracy that their corporations exist in. So our private sector eats our public sector, we get 0 democracy, and the capitalist oligarchs get all the power, all the money, and everything they need to destroy everything that belongs to all of us.
Concentrating power in the hands of a few instead of the will of the many, is problematic. It leads to disaster. It leads to devastation. We HAVE to change the system. There isn’t another choice.
That’s why. Thanks for asking!
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you. — Old Celtic Blessing ♥ (via man-in-the-way)
(via man-in-the-way)
We feel it is something that we have to do,
which is true up to a point, but we shouldn’t intimidate ourselves with that.
Actually, realising the Truth becomes a kind of joy and effortlessness and gradually, we find, it is just confirming itself by itself.
Already it has presented itself in some subtle way within you, because you cannot be bored with it, unless it is truly alive.
Instead of pushing, just be more quiet and let it continue to show itself.
Let it find its natural way to reveal itself.
Just let it come.
Your place is to say inside the heart: ‘Yes, absorb me!’
There is tremendous power in this, when genuinely expressed. — Mooji (via oceanandwave)
(via parkstepp)
(via creatingaquietmind)
How old are you? (The answer is not what you think)
My 4 year old brother can tell you how old he is even though his concept of time is essentially nonexistent. He can’t wait to be “big”, which in his mind is 5 years old. However, the rest of us are not much better at answering the question about how old we are. Yes, we are correct about our legally recognized age, but we are way off on our natural age.
We’re all the same age… really old
Atomic level
Since everything is made up of matter, we all consist of atoms. These atoms all come together to make us who we are, but my brothers atoms are not 4 years old or even 4 billion years old. At some point shortly after the big bang, atoms came together thus forming the different elements (think periodic chart). Here we are 13.7 billion years later; all of us made of the same elements. This makes me shake my head when I think of nations going to war. We’re all made of the same elements, same matter. It doesn’t seem natural. With this argument, we are all really old at about 13.7 billion years old.
We’re all about the same age… really young
Cellular level
Humans consist of around 10 trillion human cells (excluding the 100 trillion microbial cells). These cells have a turnover rate that suggests each human consists of entirely different cells every 7 years. With this argument, we are all pretty young with no one older than 7 years old.
We’re all tenants… really big compared to our landlords
Almost everything we see or touch is completely covered with a thin layer of life, i.e. bacteria. They cover us. They cover our loved ones. They cover our…everything! Also, they have been around a lot longer than we have as species. We are just using the same space they are. Heck, we are a space they live! So, in this sense, they are allowing us to use this space as tenants. They are very nice landlords, too. Consider all the benefits we receive from their generosity (think microbiome).
We’re all rentals… really short-lived
Since we’re all made up of the same atoms and these atoms have essentially been around forever, they have been used by other matter before us. And, most certainly, they will be used by matter long after we as humans are gone. Mother Nature sees us as atomic renters, but definitely not rent-to-own.
(via psychedelicmandala)
The Label It Yourself (#LIY) campaign is a decentralized, autonomous grassroots campaign born out of our broken food system. We have been asking our government to label food products so we can make educated decisions about what we eat. The government has ignored our requests and so we are taking matters into our own hands.
Get your labels at www.labelityourself.org or create our own!HEY EVERYONE IN AICE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES!!!!!! Lets do this.
You bet your ass I’m doing that shit!
This !
(via divinemama)
(via creatingaquietmind)
U.S. financial regulators to warn about student debt risks
April 25, 2013The panel of senior U.S. regulators charged with safeguarding the financial system will warn this week about risks posed by the rapidly growing amount of student debt, increasing pressure on policymakers to deal with the potential problem.
At roughly $1 trillion and rising, education loans may hamper economic growth and limit home purchases as overly indebted households and young workers cut back on consumption and borrowing, the Financial Stability Oversight Council is poised to warn in its latest annual report, sources familiar with the matter said.
The yearly compendium on financial developments and potential risks to the financial system, prepared by the nine agencies that comprise FSOC, will be made public on Thursday. Student debt will not be presented as an immediate threat to financial stability, these people said, but its mention in the report as a risk is likely to alarm a sector that has been in policymakers’ sights for the past year.
FSOC joins the Federal Reserve’s interest rate-setting panel, the Federal Open Market Committee; the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in alerting about the possible danger student debt poses to either financial stability or the broader economy.
