Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Show that you’re a person who has learned, and sign the letter, please! We must resist, we must make our voices heard. This is an easy way to help.

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls pick them, every one
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men, every one
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young men gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers, every one
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

And where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, a long long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, every one
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

– Pete Seeger.

For What It’s Worth.

For what it’s worth, sign the letter!

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Buffalo Springfield, 1967.

Blowin’ in the Wind.

Please sign, make your voice known. We must make a stand, we cannot fall in resignation.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

http://bobdylan.com/songs/blowin-wind/

Hands Off Our Revolution.

HOOR

MISSION STATEMENT.

 
We are a global coalition affirming the radical nature of art. We believe that art can help counter the rising rhetoric of right-wing populism, fascism and the increasingly stark expressions of xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia and unapologetic intolerance.

We know that freedom is never granted – it is won. Justice is never given – it is exacted. Both must be fought for and protected, yet their promise has seldom been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp, as at this moment.

As artists, it is our job and our duty to reimagine and reinvent social relations threatened by right-wing populist rule. It is our responsibility to stand together in solidarity. We will not go quietly. It is our role and our opportunity, using our own particular forms, private and public spaces, to engage people in thinking together and debating ideas, with clarity, openness and resilience.

OUR PROJECT.

 
A series of contemporary art exhibitions and actions that confront, head on, the rise of right-wing populism in the US, Europe and elsewhere. Exhibitions featuring critically engaged contemporary artists and taking place in central art institutions as well as alternative spaces, that will bring into public view statements, questions and reflections on the state we are in. To do what art has always endeavored: to help envision and shape the world in which we want to live.

Proceeds will go to arts & activist causes and building the coalition.

Hands Off Our Revolution.

Dear Mr. Trump…

Dear

Avaaz has a global letter going, and they’d like to get 6 million signatures. I’ve signed. Please, sign yourself, and boost the signal! We can make our voices heard.

With the Muslim ban, Trump has shown that the worst fears about his Presidency are true. Add your voice to the open letter below to join the resistance — then spread it far and wide:

—-

Dear Mr. Trump,

This is not what greatness looks like.

The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don’t look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you.

Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding.

As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division.

Sincerely,
[Add your name!]

Please sign and share!

There are many language options at the site.

A Fine Trolling.

littlemarco-800x430

Screen Grab.

Yet more constituents, frustrated by the republican response of running away in the face of questions, and people wanting actual answers, have come up with another excellent trolling effort. The target this time is Marco Rubio, who like his compatriots, is hiding in fear of having to give a straight answer.

“Missing – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (FL-R),” the flier reads, with a picture of the Republican senator. The signs add that Rubio “refuses to take meeting with his constituents” regarding his votes in favor of Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“Side note, he accepted $100,000 from DeVos family, which might have swayed his vote.”

The fliers also charge Rubio with not responding “to hundred of emails, phone calls and voicemails” and claim he has not been seen in his office for weeks.

Rubio engaged Tillerson in a contentious back-and-forth during the Secretary of State’s confirmation hearing, at one point asking Tillerson if he would label Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”

Despite originally sparring with Tillerson, Rubio confirmed the former Exxon CEO, Rubio voted for Tillerson, prompting a Greenpeace activist to protest the Florida senator by holding a spine prop behind him during a press gaggle.

Rubio also voted to confirm DeVos, despite a massive public campaign to sway the senator’s vote.

Naturally, there was an outraged denial from Rubio’s spokesperson:

“Anyone who claims they can’t get in touch with Senator Rubio’s office is being dishonest,” the spokesperson said. “Our Tampa office only has two employees and serves multiple counties, yet they have met with dozens of these liberal activists.”

“This is nothing more than a strategy outlined in an online activist manual to carry out ‘mass office calling,’” the spokesperson continued. “In the manual, activists are instructed that ‘you and your group should all agree to call in on one specific issue that day.’ They are further instructed that ‘the next day or week, pick another issue, and call again on that.’ Their goal is to flood offices with calls and emails and then go to the press and claim they aren’t getting a response.”

Right. That’s why rethugs are canceling town halls left and right. This is a way to apply pressure, and rightfully so, because people want answers. Full story here.

On National Strike.

On strike today. See you all on Saturday!

 

Demonstrators block an escalator at the international terminal as protests against President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries continue at San Francisco International Airport, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Olga Rodriguez).

Demonstrators block an escalator at the international terminal as protests against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries continue at San Francisco International Airport, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Olga Rodriguez).

In a column for the Guardian on Monday, American writer Francine Prose called for a “nonviolent national general strike” to demonstrate “how many of us there are, how strong and committed we are, how much we can accomplish.”

She wrote: “Let’s designate a day on which no one (that is, anyone who can do so without being fired) goes to work, a day when no one shops or spends money, a day on which we truly make our economic and political power felt.”

Calls to do just that have been circulating online recently, with activists setting Feb. 17 — the Friday before President’s Day — as the day for a #nationalstrike against the presidency of Donald Trump.

No one working, no one buying anything, for one day. I realize not everyone will be able to blithely ignore their job for one day, but if you can get away with it, please, please, do. Affinity will be closed for the strike on Friday, February 17th, and I will post a reminder prior to the day. Pretty sure most people can manage to forgo shopping for one day. Be ungovernable.

The full, in-depth story is at News.Mic.

*Spits*

19-6

© C. Ford.

North Dakota legislators have been pushing a raft of draconian bills through to make any protesting impossible to do, if you’re actually outside your abode. The worst of them is one which would allow drivers to ‘accidentally’ hit a protester without penalty. Thankfully, it didn’t pass, but the shit-filled asshole who authored it still wants it to be enacted, because:

Republican state Representative Keith Kempenich told local media that he sponsored the bill after his mother-in-law was caught in a protest while driving.

Kempenich defended the bill Monday before a vote, saying current laws had failed to protect citizens, and that the much publicized bill was mischaracterized by the media.

“I’d like to see this bill passed forward. I think that it shows that we are willing to stand up for the citizens of this state,” he said.

How about you say what you mean, you piece of shit? You want that bill to pass because you think us nasty Indians ought to be killed. We sure as hell obviously aren’t citizens of this state in your colonial, genocidal eyes. Fuck you, Kempenich.

Via Raw Story.

Trolling Chaffetz with Invoices.

Bill

Constituents less than pleased with Chaffetz, who dismissed them as paid protesters, have found a brilliant way to troll him, while driving their displeasure at his lack of representation home. Daily Kos has the full story.

Also see Chaffetz’s shameful response to a 10 year old constituent:

Yes, Chaffetz needs to avoid such intimidating radicals as a 10-year-old girl who accepts science and wonders if her Congressman does.