Daily Archives: January 15, 2019

Most UN Security Council (UNSC) meetings are so stuffy that they’re hard to watch without wishing someone would open a window, turn on the ventilator or take the august ambassadors off life support. Norman Finkelstein couldn’t have been more apt than when he called Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a “comatose puppet of the United States.” I went through an entire pot of strong coffee just listening to last week’s three-hour UNSC meeting about the Dec. 30 election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ambassadors spoke in code, without naming key players and perpetrators.

In 6259 (2019), WE acknowledge 400 years since the first known kidnapped African prisoners of war were enslaved in what became the “13 European colonies” and what i call the united capitalist prison terrorist states of america (ucptsa). According to several sources, these Africans were brought to and “sold” in what became the colony of “james-town, virginia” in August of 1619, on a European-English en$lavement ship called the “white lion.” Going forward, look for a number of special events, publications and art commemorating this 400-year event in the coming months.

On Friday, Jan. 18, 2019, teachers from Fremont High School, along with teachers all across Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), will be holding another “sick-out.” Just like the last sick-out, this will look like multiple teachers from multiple schools calling in “sick” on Friday morning. We the teachers demand that OUSD prioritize public education for all of our students in the district. Friday will be a small taste of what OUSD teachers on strike will look like at the end of this month or early next month, in February. Yes, OUSD teachers are strike ready!

On Dec. 10, 2018, dozens of people, mostly high school and college students, held a protest at the busy intersection of San Antonio Road and El Camino Avenue in Mountain View, California, to condemn the corruption, brutality and killings by the U.S.-backed regime of Jovenel Moise in Haiti. Protesters made and carried enlarged posters of unarmed Haitian students who have been killed by the Haitian police. The demands of the protest were straightforward: Stop the repression and killings of student activists in Haiti! Stop U.S. support for the corrupt regime of Jovenel Moise! Support the struggle of the Haitian people for education, human rights, and democracy!

I have been thinking a lot recently about restorative justice practices and violence – physical, psychological and emotional violence and the harm to persons, immediate and long term, as well as the harm to their associate families and communities. Not much attention is paid to the survivors of violence unless the violence is by the state, yet every day people are making choices which harm innocent people. Why is the activist community silent when it comes to advocacy for these silenced survivors?