An Old Jewish Anarchist Revoluntionary Anthem

It’s Dawn Already, Wake Up! Open Your Eyes!

www.akpress.org/2006/items/ana

This is a wonderful historical piece that I found today. Enjoy.

“Nashawn Williams Addresses The Media” posted by Kevin over at the Undercurrent Blog is a video in 3 parts of the press conference held last Saturday at Charter Oak Cultural Center. Please click here. Nashawn William is a 16 year old black youth who was attacked by a gang of whites in Plainfield while waiting for a school bus in October 2007.  Police are trying to close the case, no witnesses or arrests.  Click here for a report from Frank O’Gorman on QWB’s blog.

QWB thanks Kevin of the Hartford Undercurrent for this video.

Wearing signs that said, “NO ATTACK ON IRAN”, 200 +protesters poured into Grand Central Station at the heart of rush hour. The protesters FROZE in place for a few minutes and then erupted in shouts of

“NO ATTACK ON IRAN!!!!!!!”

Posted by Rowland Keshena on A Radical in Bermuda.

The Greenward Shift of the American Revolutionary Left

(Are Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party a real alternative for American workers and youth?)

* 

As I posted last night, one my biggest gripes with sections of the American revolutionary left (including the US branch of the IMT) is that they are undergoing a reorientation away from the construction of a new revolutionary worker’s movement and towards the left-social democrats of the Green Party USA. Two of the more prominent revolutionary socialist groups to have backed the Green Party this year are the Workers International League (the American branch of the IMT) and Solidarity. So we must ask ourselves, is the Green Party USA the best alternative out there for workers and revolutionary change? Also what is going on with current attempts to unify the campaigns of several American revolutionary socialist groupings?So to the first question, does the Green Party represent the best interests of the workers and revolution in the United States? I would have to say no, especially when we throw in the idea of revolution. While I’ll admit that the Greens are far more progressive than the Democrats, (just see here and here), and they certainly are at the forefront of the battle to protect the environment (something all real socialists support), they are still broadly a left-social democrat institution. Now, I know right now you might be saying “but I really like the Green Party’s platform“, hell so do I, it has many great points to it, and as I said, it is certainly far more progressive and left than even the most extreme Democrats like Dennis Kucinich, but the intrinsic problem with the Greens is that they have not come to grips with the systemic nature of the capitalist problem, even as it pertains to the environmental question. At the moment they still are in the mode of trying to reform capitalism into a cleaner, nicer, less-heartless variety, but once they realize that capitalism is irreformable I fully believe that their platform will shift more to the left. The Green Party does not offer up the fundamental revolutionary change that is really needed to emancipate the working class. So why support a non-revolutionary organization when well established revolutionary parties and movements already exist?

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A key inspiration to my process of organizing and activism has lately been driven by the amazing Ella Baker. Ella was a leading civil rights and human rights activist starting back in the 1930’s. In the world where many notable activists demand center stage for their voices and egos, Ella was a true leader who led from behind as well as working side by side in the struggle for human equality. As Ella stated, and Bernice Johnson Reagon lyrics proclaim in “Ella’s Song”:

“To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
And if I can shed some light as they carry us through the gale
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hand of the young who dare to run against the storm
Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be just one in the number as we stand against tyranny
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot I come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survive”

All of us, no matter how big or how small we or our work are, should take stock in Ella’s vision and practice of activism! Another key belief of Ella’s was that “you must let the oppressed themselves define their own freedom.” A mantra that we in the the Trans community must embrace if we are to realize the true freedoms we desire. Metroline can attempt to marginalize or erase the power of the Trans movement, though we the Trannies, the Queens, the Kings, the Queers have and continue to define our own freedom ~ and not let our history or our futures be defined by Metroline, HRC or any other entity that attempts to marginalize our identity and beauty!

To learn more about Ella, I encourage you at least to read Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision.

Below are both a video of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing Ella’s song (lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon) and the inspiring lyrics, of which many lines are based on things Ella said. Enjoy.

Ella’s Song
Composed by Bernice Johnson Reagon, copyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.

Refrain: [Read more →]

Check out James Wagner recent posting, “Obama really gets religious-but we will pay for it.” The posting can be read here. While your at it take a look around James’s site. Some wonderful things can be found there.

“Want to define love, commitment, family, and sexual merrymaking on your own terms? Honey, that’s so last century.” Click here to read Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore thought provoking editorial from the San Francisco Bay Guardian published June 25, 2008.

“Now that the California Supreme Court has struck down the ban on same-sex marriage, everywhere we hear of couples who’ve been together 10, 20, or 30 years (or six months) rushing to tie the knot and proclaim: “finally … it’s … legitimate!” It’s hard to imagine a more wholehearted rejection of queer struggles to create defiant ways of living and loving, lusting for and caring for one another — methods not dependent on inclusion in the dominant institutions of straight privilege.”

Let’s all take a listen

as  

A Revolutionary Speaks.

We are Here

By Robin Passariello Mc Haelen

A person’s a person

No matter how queer

The world better listen

We are here, we are here.

Gay, Bi or Straight-ish

Boi Dyke or Bear

Trans Guys and T -Girls

We are here, we are here.

Drag Queens and Leathermen,

Butch, fly or femme

We are all of us Family

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Greetings to all.

Our Blogger Registration is fixed and we invite each and everyone to post with us. We would love it. Just click on Blogger Registration.  When QWB started this blog we thought of this as a people’s blog much like our SPEAK OUT cart. Who speaks? We all speak. We would like this blog to become the Queer/LGBT and Ally forum of the area. Let’s talk multi-issue. 

QWB brings you two music vids to kick off Trans/Queer Pride Month

Holly Near sings

I am willing.

and our favorite anarchist queer folk singer adhamh roland singing (what else but)

peace, justice and anarchy

Chisholm ‘72: Unbought & Unbossed.

Thursday, June 19, 2008, 6:30

Faith Congregational Church

2030 Main Street, Hartford Ct.

This movie is about Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and her campaign to become the democratic party’s presidential nominee in 1972. Come join us to honor her legacy with a screening of this historical documentary. The film will be followed by a community conversation with community leaders.

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An interview with gay rights hell-raiser Tamara Turner. Turner is a co-author of Gay Resistance: The Hidden History (Red Letter Press, 1997) and a cast member of the 1993 play “Hidden History: True Stories from Seattle’s Gay and Lesbian Elders.” Turner comments on decades of activism and shares her acerbic observations with FS writer Doug Barnes.

From the interview:

Q. So what lessons do we need to apply today?

A. “History tells us that if we don’t hang together we’ll hang separately. I think we need to build a broad, radical leadership that can expose this system and offer a vision of its replacement. A world where people are judged by their qualities as a person, as a human being rather than by skin color, what’s between their legs, their sexual orientation, or gender.” [Read more →]

PRIDE IS MORE THAN A TRINKET TRIBE

PRIDE IS ABOUT A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AND PEOPLE

June 2008 marks the 39th year after the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn in NYC. This marked the start of the massive LGBT movement in the United states. It was on those nights in June and early July that our people in New York’s Greenwich Village fought back against police harassment, injustice and opperssion that we faced daily. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of this rebellion. It is never too early to reflect on where we as a people have been, where we are now, and where we are going.

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A few quotes from Mr. Holmes analysis. For the full report click here. 

“Many if not most of Obama’s foreign policy advisors are veterans of Bill Clinton’s presidency but, despite that fact, so far as the masses see the war, while Rodham Clinton seems to be for change, Obama sees to represent more change. The catchword here is “seems”. In fact Rodham Clinton, McCain and Obama have all pledged to continue the occupation of Iraq after the elections. They have all also vowed to intensify the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, attack Iran “if necessary” support Israel to the hilt and continue the blockade of Cuba.”

“The masses did not launch Obama’s presidential campaign-a section of the ruling class and its political operatives did. Some in the ruling class got behind Obama merely to advance their faction fight against the Clintons inside the Democratic Party. And yes, some of those opposed to Clinton are misogynist, plain and simple. But others in the ruling class have rallied behind Obama because they view him as better suited than Clinton or McCain to deal with a central crisis of U.S. imperialism. They need to find a way to halt the rapid deterioration of its position as the world’s dominant economic and military power.” 

“The foreign debate among the candidates seems to have been reduced to whether or not U.S. imperialism should talk to its enemies with Obama advocating the talk instead of–or in addition to–a war policy.” 

QUEERS WITHOUT BORDERS (QWB) 

Who we are. 

A small group of Queers activists who are active in the anti-war movement began meeting several years back to bring a queer presence to the many movements that we as individuals were involved in. Our name Queers Without Borders was taken from the slogan, “We are here, there and everywhere.”  It logically follows in our mind then that all issues are our issues. We stand with all who fight oppression. We work to build a new day of justice and a culture of peace. 

Over the years we have actively help to plan and to participate in all sorts of activities.  We firmly believe that for the lgbt community to not take a multi-issue stand is foolish and unwise and any single issue stand denies our true heritage. The following is just some of the events that we worked on. These are not listed in chronological order. [Read more →]

***OOOOOOH a MUST LISTEN*** 

The Ballad of The Skeletons

performed by Allen Ginsburg and Paul McCartney

Sunday June 15, 2008

6:00-8:00 pm

Charter Oak Cultural Center

21 Charter Oak Ave. Hartford Ct.

Ken Keyser is an activist from the nascent anarchist movement in Norway-the “social democratic paradise” in Northern Europe. In the start of June he’ll be touring the North-Eastern US with an illustrated presentation called, “The Prefigurative Organization”. The presentation will try to answer the question, “How can we best try to reflect the future that we want, in our present work.” It will touch upon subjects such as direct democracy, direct action, workers councils, anarchist organizing and involvement in social movements.

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Even if none of us around here can fly off to San Francisco check it out–Mattilda’s book, which I believe is on of the more important works done in these days will be coming out in a expanded second edition. Mattilda will be celebrating this event and there will be “a dangerous and illuminating discussion.” That’s Revolting! Queers Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, will have its launch this Thursday June 5th. Info follows.

FORGET MARRIAGE, IT’S TIME FOR…

That’s Revolting!: Radical queer activism–past, present, and future.

Thursday June, 5, 6pm

San Francisco Main Library

Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room (downstairs)

100 Larkin Street

Co-sponsored by the National Queer Arts Festival.

Click here to read about the book launch this Thursday, 6p.m. Thanks Mattilda. Keep on keeping on!!!

I am Claude Holcomb from ADAPT of Connecticut. I am here on the steps of City Hall because a friend of people with disabilities, Reverend Wade Blank, taught me that if you believe your rights are being compromised, you need to speak up. The library has denied access to people with all types of disabilities, not just people with severe disabilities, or people who use wheelchairs. Not having a power door at the main entrance of the library affects anyone who uses an assisted devices, such as a can, walker, crutches or scooter. It also affects people who have service animals and people who are elderly. [Read more →]

Note: The following remarks are by Jerimarie Liesegang.  Jerimarie is the Director of Ct. TransAdvocacy Coalition and a founding member of Queers Without Borders, Hartford Ct. When the city announced that it was going to correct the problem Jerimarie chose not to give her speech. I publish it here as it is a damn good speech and shows our willingness to correct this situation. Thanks Jerimarie for your leadership on issues affecting our people and many others.

It’s a Travesty.

As one enters New York Harbor the Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims, “Give us your poor, tired, your huddled masses longing to be free.” As one approaches the front doors of the Hartford Public Library in a wheelchair you see the proclamation: “Give us your poor, your tired, your homeless, your sexual predators..and those in wheelchairs GO AROUND BACK for your are NOT Welcomed through these front doors!”

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Note: These remarks were presented by African American Lesbian Activist Regina Dyton at the May 30th Press Conference at City Hall Hartford. 

The City of Hartford Commission on LGBT Issues is proud to stand with ADAPT, all members of the disability rights community, Queers Without Borders and all other allies to protest the lack of equitable access to the Hartford Public Library.

The ramp at the front of the library invites all who need to use it to enter with dignity, on par with all people wishing to use the library. The inoperable door at the end of the ramp sends a message of inequality, not to mention the work it take for many pepole to get to the end of that ramp, only to find no access. those who need the ramp include not only those using wheelchairs, but those who have difficulty walking up stairs and those who use walkers. All of us who find a dead-end at the end of the ramp are instructed to use the accessible entrance at the back of the library, next to the parking lot. As an African American woman in her 50s, using the back door sounds all too familiar. If it ain’t right for me, how can it be right for someone else? That entrance is commonly used by people who drive to the library (as it is next to the parking lot) or others who choose to use it. It is unfair to provide choices for some and none for others. [Read more →]

Join us for a U. Utah Phillips Song

Stand hand in hand

There is power in the union.

 by Joe Hill

Everyone should click on over to AlterNet and read Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s recent posting published May 28, 2008. Mattilda certainly has a good perspective on this.  Click here for the full article. To read more of Mattilda’s work go to our side bar and click on her name. Check into linking to AlterNet if you are not all ready signed on.

Note: 

We at QWB since our start have been speaking out about “ gay” (damn I hate calling it that when lesbians are involved also(more blending in?)) marriage since early in our postings. What troubles me as a old activist is the fact that so much of our energy, resources, and time is being spent on this one issue. It has up to this date been hard to convince those in the marriage movement that there is a whole world out there that is struggling also and that GLBT people should as they always did in history past join in these struggles. I should think that by now these very same activists would understand that groups who stand alone are picked off rather quickly. It must be a awful line to walk being so caught up in the straight establishment accepting you and wanting so bad to be legitimized by them that their eyes are blinded to all other struggles. There are countless other wars going on out side your windows and doors. As I have said so many times before if we are indeed here, there and everywhere then these struggles are our struggles. When the shit hits the fan baby, all the blenders blending in won’t be saved. For the straights know you and know who you are. And there you will stand in your wedding gowns and tuxedo a blank look of why oh why on your face when they come to get those who tried to pale their genes but failed. At sixty I am realizing that I have less in common with the gay and lesbian movement, their wants and needs and more in common with others that struggle.

For other QWB postings on marriage click  here, here.

“Israel was built over the debris of 400 destroyed villages and sorrows of 750,00 people, both Christians and Muslims, expelled from their land.” To read Bessy’s entire article click here. This article appeared in the Hartford Courant, Friday May 16, 2008.

Seeking Justice is never out of date.

One of our links is AngryBrownButch. The site is run by Jack and always contains some real good stuff. Click on over there and read Jack’s article, The honeymoon is officially over, about the Obama/Rev. Wright controversy. Check out Jack more often from our sidebar.

The Internationale

by Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg complained to Pete Seeger that the traditional lyrics to the Internationale were somewhat dated. Pete Seeger said: “why don’t you write new ones?” So Billy Bragg did. For May Day 2008 Queers Without Borders sends out to all of you this wonderful version of the Internationale. The original Internationale was first written and sung after the brutal suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871. This rallying cry sings out loud and clear for all exploited and oppressed people of the world to rise up and overthrow their masters.

The Workers Rose On May Day or Postscript To Karl Marx

Audre Lorde

Down Wall Street

the students marched for peace

Above, construction workers looking on remembered

how it was for them in the old days

before their closed shop white security

and daddy pays the bill

so they climbed down the girders

and taught their sons a lesson

called Marx, is a victim of the generation gap

called Marx, I grew up the hard way so will you

called the limits of a sentimental vision.

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Yesterday at the Transgender Lives Conference Diana who was on a panel titled, “National, State and Commmunity Trans Legislative Advocacy” brought up that during Trans lobby days that were recently held in Washington DC, HRC was no where to be found. Take a click over to The Bilerico Project and read what Marti Abernathey has to say here. 

Just a note to any conference participant: This old queer still doesn’t trust HRC as far as I can throw an elephant.  

Barack Obama: Substantive hope or pipe dream?

By Harvey Earvin and Howard Guidry

Harvey Earvin

Running on a message of change, presidential candidate Barack Obama has inspired hope never before witnessed in this century or perhaps even the preceding one. New voters, mostly young, filled with new hope and a renewed belief that America could one day live up to her creed, are flocking to the
polls in support of him.

Hope. Unity. Change. Obama certainly has the right message. Perhaps he’s even the right man. But is the Democratic Party the right party? And is the capitalist system the right system?

---

Every step of the way in this contentious campaign the Clintons and key party members loyal to them have sought to marginalize Obama and reduce him to just another Black man by repeatedly injecting race into the campaign.

They have even tried to trivialize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the process. Even worse, at one point they outright excused and encouraged the fear and mistaken notions that many whites have of Blacks by saying, with an air of understanding and tolerance, that “some whites are just not ready to vote for a Black man to be president.”

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Angela Davis will be speaking on Thursday April 24, 2008 at the Torp Theatre, Davidson Hall on the CCSU campus. COME OUT TO GREET OUR LESBIAN SISTER. Ms Davis will discuss “Are Prisons Obsolete?” which will be followed by a panel discussion by current and former Ct. policy makers and practitioners. This talk and discussion will be held at 2:00pm.

At 5:30 Ms. Davis will speak on “Race, Class and Gender Issues In American Society.” This talk will be followed by a question and answer period. Both events are free and open to the public. Free tickets are available for the 5:30 lecture by contacting Centix at 832-1989. Centix is located at the Information Desk in the Student Center.

Angela Davis is a socialist organizer and helped to found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism which broke from the Communist Party in the 90’s. Ms. Davis  does not consider herself to be a prison “reformer” but an abolitionist and refers to the United States prison system as the “prison-industrial complex.” Her solutions include abolishing prisons and addressing the class, race,and gender factors that have led to a large number of Blacks and Latinos being incarcerated. Davis also speaks out against the death penalty. [Read more →]

NO NEED TO SAY MORE

“What workers everywhere need is SOCIALISM. Why? Because it’s the only system that takes the wealth of society—the wealth created by workers—out of private hands. We’re not talking about taking away workers’ personal property. It’s not socialists but capitalists who are taking away workers’ homes, cars and furniture and garnisheeing their wages. We’re talking about taking the billions stolen from workers’ labor away from the whole capitalist class and using it for people’s needs”. …Deirdre Grisworld In “Digging below the Surface” published Apr. 10 Workers World. For complete article here

“In the rush towards being accepted as normal, queer communities may lose one of their great strengths: an ability to examine social structures from a position of difference and, therefore, to work towards greater liberation for us all so writes Susan Thompson in her essay, “Speak Now or Forever Hold your Peace? Why we need  Queer Critiques of “gay” Marriage. Susan brings up many of the points that have been discussed on this site since we first opened. I will just name a few and then you can read the entire article by clicking here.

“Framing gay marriage only as a battle for civil rights excludes critiques that examine the issue in a broader social context-critiques that are central to queer theory and queer politics, and are currently dividing queer communities over the issue.” [Read more →]

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Steve Kretzmann’s excellect article, “Iraq= 25 million new cars and counting,” can be found over at Oil Change. His report on March 19, 2008 is just another reason that we stand opposed to the war on Iraq. Because of the war mongers our whole planet must suffer. Mr. Kretzmann’s article can be found here

The Coup

Ride the Fence

Party Music (2001)

Thanks to Alvin of QWB for sharing this video with us. "No Fence Ridin'" rings or should ring loud and clear to all of us. If not this special work by The Coup should get everyone in the mood and off the fence.

Remember----"You can't change shit by ridin' the fence."

note: Poem by T.E.D, Winter 69-70                                                   

My Shrink Is A Fink

My shrink is a fink

   I think.

He tells me I’m schizo;

          SCHIZO!!!?????

                          SCHIMITZO!!!!!

     He’s full of beans.

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STOP THE WAR!

BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!