The various posters made by Shepard Fairey for this week’s Inauguration in Washington, DC (via Kickstarter).
We The People.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
The various posters made by Shepard Fairey for this week’s Inauguration in Washington, DC (via Kickstarter).
UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN Exhibit artwork, The Untitled Space Gallery, New York – Laura Murray – Plug It Up.
In the wake of Paul Ryan’s promise to defund Planned Parenthood, the current political climate is not promising for women. In response, The Untitled Space art gallery has assembled work by 80 contemporary female artists expressing anger and defiance through their art. Uprise/Angry Women gives women a chance to artistically express their fears and frustrations about the sexist and discriminatory rhetoric brought to light by the impending administration. The show’s curator Indira Cesarine writes, “Right now, more than ever, women need to unify and work together to ensure that our rights, which were fought for with blood and tears for many decades, are not only assured, but continue to progress.”
UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN Exhibit artwork, The Untitled Space Gallery, New York – CARA DEANGELIS- Donald Trump with a Crown of Roadkill.
UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN Exhibit artwork, The Untitled Space Gallery, New York – Lili White “Winning-Personality Target”.
UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN Exhibit artwork, The Untitled Space Gallery, New York – Linda Friedman Schmidt – Weeding.
You can read about this at The Creators Project. * UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN.
A group of artists whose political artwork work became headline news during the rise of Donald Trump are working together to turn activists’ and artists’ blood into a painting called RISE UP THY YOUNG BLOOD. Contributing to the painting can be seen as quite literally a blood oath, with participants pledging to resist the real estate mogul-turned-politician’s potential presidential policies aimed at targeting women, immigrants, and minorities.
Late last year, Illma Gore, who allegedly received legal threats from members of the Trump campaign for her depiction of Trump with a micropenis, began working with INDECLINE, a guerilla collective that coordinated the simultaneous installation of nude Trump statues in five US cities. In December, Gore issued a call to arms encouraging the art community to challenge the president-elect at every available opportunity. Now, her collaboration with INDECLINE is the first of several planned anti-Trump art actions in the first year of his presidency.
RISE UP THY YOUNG BLOOD begins with a blood drive on January 13, in which “high profile donors from the world of art, music, graffiti and activism,” will contribute up to a pint of blood each. INDECLINE will coordinate the event with an anonymous blood bank, revealing the location to only confirmed donors and documenting the entire process. They’ll deliver the sanguine fluid to Gore, who will produce a blood-red painting, loosely based on the American Flag, to be hung at LA’s Samuel Freeman Gallery on January 15. Gore has already started painting using blood her own blood and donations from INDECLINE members. Germophobes, relax: the painting will be sealed with acrylic to make it safe for viewing.
The full, in-depth article and interview is at The Creators Project.
Credit: Matt Chase.
Screenshot activists are reaching out to advertisers, pointing out ads which are right next to hateful commentary, fake news, and open bigotry. The primary target right now is Breitbart. So far the activism has been effective, but as with all activism, this could be, and needs to be, a much larger effort.
One day in late November, an earth and environmental science professor named Nathan Phillips visited Breitbart News for the first time. Mr. Phillips had heard about the hateful headlines on the site — like “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” — and wondered what kind of companies would support such messages with their ad dollars. When he clicked on the site, he was shocked to discover ads for universities, including one for the graduate school where he’d received his own degree — Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “That was a punch in the stomach,” he said.
Why would an environmental science program want to be promoted on a site that denies the existence of climate change? Mr. Phillips figured — correctly — that Duke officials did not know where their ads were appearing, so he sent a tweet to Duke about its association with the “sexist racist” site. Eventually, after a flurry of communication with the environment department, he received a satisfying resolution — an assurance that its ads would no longer show up on Breitbart.
Mr. Phillips had just engaged in a new form of consumer activism, one that is rewriting the rules of online advertising. In the past month and a half, thousands of activists have started to push companies to take a stand on what you might call “hate news” — a toxic mix of lies, white-supremacist content and bullying that can inspire attacks on Muslims, gay people, women, African-Americans and others.
In mid-November, a Twitter group called Sleeping Giants became the hub of the new movement. The Giants and their followers have communicated with more than 1,000 companies and nonprofit groups whose ads appeared on Breitbart, and about 400 of those organizations have promised to remove the site from future ad buys.
[…]
But when I reached out to several organizations that seemed to have joined the ban, they didn’t want to talk about it. A bank and a nonprofit group did not respond to my queries. Two companies — 3M and Zappos — declined to talk about the matter. A Patagonia spokeswoman said that her company did not advertise on white-supremacist sites — but she would not comment on the screenshots that activists had sent to Patagonia in early December showing the company’s logo on Breitbart’s Facebook page. Warby Parker was the most forthcoming; a representative pointed me to a statement that thanked a Twitter activist for inspiring its own ban on Breitbart.
In the behavior of some of these companies, you can detect the way our norms have already shifted. In the old normal, it would have cost little to stand up against neo-Nazi slogans. But in the new normal, doing so might involve angering key players in the White House, including the president-elect, Donald J. Trump, who has hired the former editor of Breitbart as his senior adviser. Mr. Trump recently proved the damage he could do to a company by criticizing Lockheed Martin on Twitter; soon after, its stocks prices tumbled.
Still, a new consumer movement is rising, and activists believe that where votes failed, wallets may prevail. This struggle is about much more than ads on Breitbart News — it’s about using corporations as shields to protect vulnerable people from bullying and hate crimes.Nicholas Reville, a board member of the Participatory Culture Foundation who has worked with the Sleeping Giants, pointed out that businesses benefited from embracing diversity: “You have to be inclusionary if you’re going to try to sell to a very large audience.” And he pointed out that consumer activism might be especially effective because so many people feel they have no other way to express their opposition to Trump-ian values.
The founder of Sleeping Giants agreed. “It’s scary to say it, but maybe companies will have to be the standard-bearers for morals right now,” he said. He added that most corporations embrace policies (on paper at least) that prohibit racist bullying and sexual intimidation. Even if President Trump flouts these rules, corporations may continue to uphold them. “We’ve all seen employee handbooks where they have codes of behavior,” he said. “Maybe that’s all we have to fall back on now.”
If you’re already on Twitter, and can cope with skimming Breitbart, consider joining #sleepinggiants. There’s also a sleeping giants EU.
#TheResistance #SleepingGiants@slpng_giants campaign to defund Breitbart
Companies that have dumped Breitbart https://t.co/TLHyLvwiEj pic.twitter.com/6RXydm2ilF
— The Anti-Trump (@IMPL0RABLE) January 8, 2017
Jan Chamberlin (Facebook).
A member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has resigned rather than perform at the inauguration ceremony for Donald Trump — which she worries would be “endorsing tyranny and (fascism) by singing for this man.”
The choir’s acceptance of an invitation to sing at the event has divided Mormons, who largely backed Trump in the election despite their uneasiness with the Republican candidate during the campaign.
But Janet Chamberlin, a member of the 360-person choir, has chosen to quit after spending “several sleepless nights and days in turmoil and agony” as she prayed and reflected on her choice, reported the Salt Lake City Tribune.
“I’ve tried to tell myself that by not going to the inauguration, that I would be able to stay in Choir for all the other good reasons,” Chamberlin wrote in her resignation letter, which she later shared on Facebook.
[…]
Chamberlin, who said her resignation was a “hugely moral issue,” said she’s received hateful messages since announcing her decision.
Hateful messages. I can imagine. That only goes to show that refusing to perform and stay with the choir was the only ethical choice.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said that participation in Trump’s inauguration is not required, and the choir’s involvement is not a political statement but is instead a “demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.”
Well. That’s quite the spin, especially in light of the fact that there has been no demonstration of freedom, civility, or peace of any kind from the incoming administration. Instead, we’ve had open corruption, wide open racism, fascism, open hostility towards swathes of peoples, a distinct lack of civility, and the threat of nuclear war and a brand new arms race.
[…]
“I only know I could never ‘throw roses to Hitler,’” Chamberlin wrote. “And I certainly could never sing for him.”
We’re going to need a whole lot more people like Ms. Chamberlin in the days to come.
Via Raw Story.
A YouTube video from North Dakota’s new Gov. Doug Burgum. More of the same about Standing Rock.
Damn. Think about what was possible: A governor who is framing his entire administration on innovation just dismissed the most disruptive force in his state’s recent history. That is what Standing Rock is about. Instead of saying, “What can we learn from this? What can we do together?” The new governor relied on the screen saver that was there before; the idea that powerful forces will roll over the tribe and build the Dakota Access Pipeline without interference. Thank you.
Burgum also scratched away at an old story: The Obama administration created this problem.
But his larger message is that the state of North Dakota and its corporate partners are more powerful than any tribal government. Instead of a pause, a moment to engage in a government-to-government dialogue, the new governor emphatically says the pipeline will get built soon. No. Matter. What.
“Make no mistake, this infrastructure is good for our economy,” the governor said in his YouTube video. “And it’s the safest way to transport North Dakota products. Failure to finish it would send a chilling signal to those in any industry who wish invest in our state and play by the rules.”
[…]
The new governor could have reset the law enforcement battle lines too. Nope. “As a result of the Obama administration’s refusal to uphold the rule of law on federally owned land, both our citizens and local and state law enforcement have been put in harm’s way,” he said. “These actions are putting daily demands on the scarce resources of our state and local government.”
Those daily demands are because the state of North Dakota made it so. Pick a word: defuse, de-escalate, negotiate. There were so many better alternatives, ones that were dismissed in favor of sending in the cavalry. I have interviewed many government officials over the years that successfully reduced tension instead of using the police powers of a state. In every test the state failed in this regard and the new governor is following the same path.
I had hopes that Gov. Burgum would see the potential of the Standing Rock story as one that could make North Dakota a beacon. Think about this: This moment in history has brought indigenous people together in a way that’s unprecedented. And the world is paying attention to that. What an amazing opportunity, something that could stir the imagination of investors, entrepreneurs, and governments. Potential partners in a state that found a solution by working with tribes to solve an intractable problem.
The former governor blamed social media for this global perception. But that misses the point that the Standing Rock Tribe owns the story. And that won’t change because the new governor posts a video on his account. The problem is not social media. It’s the message that the State of North Dakota will use the rule of law, the police power of a state, to roll over a tribal nation. It’s a message of brute force instead of inspiration.
Same old tired shit. Same old tired white privilege. Nothing ever changes. Mark Trahant’s full column at ICTMN.
The best carols I have heard in a long time. It’s interesting to watch the faces of the listeners. Via The Advocate.
(Reuters/Lucas Jackson).
Since the election of Donald Trump, the walls of New York City’s 14th Street Union Square subway station have become a release valve for grief-stricken New Yorkers, who, outside of Staten Island, overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton. Created by artist Matthew “Levee” Chavez, “Subway Therapy” invites anyone to write down their fears, hate and hopes on a Post-It note and tack it on the station’s tile walls.
Thousands of Post-Its have formed a thick and colorful wallpaper over the course of six weeks, with many passengers stopping to read notes or take a quick photograph of the growing collage. Chavez estimates about 2,000 new postings are added daily.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans to archive a large portion of the collection as a historical record. “Today, we preserve a powerful symbol that shows how New Yorkers of all ages, races and religions came together to say we are one family, one community and we will not be torn apart,” said Cuomo in a press statement Dec. 16. Cuomo himself posted a message of unity for New Yorkers during a Nov. 14 visit, scribbling down a line of poetry from the base of the Statue of Liberty.
The New York Historical Society will work with the NY Metropolitan Transit Authority to gather and preserve the sticky notes as part of its History Responds program. “We are ever-mindful of preserving the memory of today’s events for future generations. Ephemeral items in particular, created with spontaneity and emotion, can become vivid historical documents,” said the society’s president Dr. Louise Mirrer.
Other articles have noted that:
The New-York Historical Society will also let New Yorkers place notes on its glass walls starting Tuesday, Dec. 20 through Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
I think everyplace should have Subway Therapy, whether there’s a subway or not. I could use one here in nDakota, not that I think it would be allowed to stand for 10 seconds.
Via Quartz.
Pastor Dahua, president of the community of Monterrica, on the Marañón River in the Peruvian Amazon, scoops oil from a spill from a Petroperu pipeline on his community’s land. Barbara Fraser.
Hunching his shoulders against a driving rain Pastor Dahua scrambled down a muddy bank and stepped across a pool of blackened water to a makeshift shelter that marked the place where crude oil had spilled from an oil pipeline.
The spill in Monterrico, the community of Kukama and Urarina people of which Dahua is president, is one of 10 that have occurred since January along the pipeline that runs from oil fields in the Peruvian Amazon across the Andes Mountains to a port and refinery on the Pacific coast.
The rain worried Dahua. Between November and May, water levels in Amazonian rivers rise by 30 feet or more, flooding villages and forests. If the spill was not cleaned up by the time the flooding began in earnest, Monterrico’s only water supply—a stream that crossed the pipeline near the end of the oil spill—could be contaminated.
Monterrico is one of dozens of communities affected by recent spills. Even more people are exposed to contamination from 40 years of oil operations that dumped oil and salty, metals-laden water into rivers, streams and lakes in Peru’s oldest Amazonian oil fields.
Government agencies have identified more than 1,000 sites needing cleanup, but have a budget of only about $15 million for testing and remediation. Experts say that is just a fraction of the amount that will be needed.
Anger over the sluggish pace of efforts to address decades of pollution and neglect have come to a head in Saramurillo, on the bank of the Marañón River, a few hours by boat downstream from Monterrico.
Hundreds of people from more than 40 indigenous communities converged there on September 1, blocking boat traffic on the Marañón River, a key transportation route in the northeastern Peruvian region of Loreto, where there are virtually no roads.
Despite an initial meeting with government officials in October, the protest dragged on into December, amid tensions among both the protesters and the travelers and merchants trapped by the blockade.
Indigenous protesters stand watch on bank of Marañón River in Saramurillo, Peru, blocking boats from passing, as they pressure the government to solve problems related to pollution from four decades of oil production in the Peruvian Amazon. Barbara Fraser.
This in depth look at the reality of oil spills, and their impact on Indigenous people is very necessary reading. The impact of such is not at all limited to Indigenous people, and the more Indigenous people fight against having pipelines on their land, the more the impact of spills will spread, further and further out, into a horrible web of contamination.
Everyone needs to stand up against fossil fuels, now more than ever, with the new climate change denying, fossil fuel loving administration poised to take over.
A student protests against Donald Trump’s proposals at Rutgers University on November 16. Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa USA via AP.
Concerned by the hateful rhetoric that has accompanied President-elect Donald Trump’s transition to the White House, a group of 1,200 historians and other scholars have put out a powerful statement urging Americans to stand guard against civil rights abuses.
“Looking back to history provides copious lessons on what is at stake when we allow hysteria and untruths to trample people’s rights,” the scholars wrote. “We know the consequences, and it is possible, with vigilance and a clear eye on history, to prevent tragedy before it is too late.”
You can read the statement in full at Mother Jones. I keep wondering what in the hell it’s going to take, to wake people up. How about Fashwave?
How about the never-ending incidents of hate?
What is it going to take?
Fracking water needs a closer look, EPA says. CREDIT: AP Photo/Brennan Linsley.
Has everyone recovered from the surprise and shock that fracking is bad for water? I suppose it’s good that the EPA finally managed to spit this one out, now that it will most likely be dismantled.
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can affect drinking water.
In light of the facts that tap water near some fracking wells has become flammable, that two families in Pennsylvania last year won a court case over the impacts of fracking on their water, and that scientists have found arsenic in water sources near fracking, the EPA’s announcement Tuesday should not come as a surprise.
But it does, since just 18 months ago, a draft version of the EPA’s fracking report said that the EPA “did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”
[…]
It’s not clear that the science will continue to be investigated, at least in the near term. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested dismantling the EPA, and his nominee to head the agency has come out strongly in favor of oil and gas development.
Trump is in the process of assembling what will be the most anti-environment, pro-fossil fuel cabinet in modern history. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has fought EPA regulations for years, has been tapped to run the EPA.
It’s worth noting that water quality is not the only thing at risk from fracking. Fracking has been linked to numerous air quality concerns, including in areas where fracking wells are located close to schools. Fracking has been tied to asthma, migraines, and other health impacts.
And let’s not forget that fracking causes earthquakes. We really don’t need to cause earthquakes, they are bad enough when they happen naturally. The government that is poised to take power seems to want to hasten the death of our earth, and all of us on it.
Photo by Tom Jefferson.
There are still people at the Oceti Sakowin camp, a considerably smaller number, around 2,000, who will stay until DA is gone. They are requesting that no one new come into camp right now, as weather conditions are very harsh. Those of us fighting the Black Snake still need help. You can signal boost, get involved in various actions, or donate, all is appreciated, deeply.
Have a look at the Oceti Sakowin Camp site, and see if there is a way to add your voice to the many.
Demonstration mot DAPL! Tillsammans mot statlig repression och dess underminering av demokratiska rättigheter. #noDAPL #VattnaNordea pic.twitter.com/lmS0u8spNQ
— SUF Uppsala ⭕️ (@SUFUppsala) December 10, 2016
Här är demonstrationens officiella affisch! Skriv ut några och ta med hem eller sätt upp på jobbet: pic.twitter.com/D9d8Gqdj1I
— SUF Uppsala ⭕️ (@SUFUppsala) December 13, 2016