a new policy for our shared environmental resources - whose authority?

Brazil court halts Amazon dam

Judge orders suspension of hydroelectric plant in the Amazon, citing environemental concerns.

The L's Coming - Speeches of Dr. King by The Black Organizing Network

 In an effort to make the entire body of Dr. Martin Luther King's teachings available to the young masses, The Black Organizing Network created this ridiculously meditative, educational "Liberating Dr. King: The L's Coming" mix. 

Liberating Dr. King: The L's Coming


It features slept-on MLK speeches over timeless hip-hop production in frequencies conducive for focus; from producers like J Dilla and 9th Wonder. Here's the tracklist:

01) Jay Dee "Much More" (De La Soul) 
02) Oddisee "Goodbye DC" 
03) Gil Scott-Heron "Whitey On The Moon" 
04) Karriem Riggins "Harmony" (Slum Village) 
05) Georgia Anne Muldrow "If So" 
06) Fertile Ground "Black Is" 
07) Georgia Anne Muldrow "Thrones" 
08) Khrysis "Watch Me" (Little Brother) 
09) The Coup "Underdogs" 
10) Sa-Ra Creative Partners "Love Czars" 
11) 2Pac "Words Of Wisdom" 
12) Organized Noize "Black Ice (Sky High)" (Goodie MOb) 
13) Jimi Hendrix Band Of Gypsys "Machine Gun" 
14) Dudley Perkins "Run It Down" 
15) Jay Dee "Love It Here" (Elzhi) 
16) Erykah Badu "A.D. 2000" 
17) DJ Spinna "Holiday remix" (Roy Ayers) 
18) Georgia Anne Muldrow "Fantastic remix"

This is something you can listen to while working on another task and let your subconscious soak up the deep wisdom of King. Here's how they describe the purpose and process of putting the project together, followed by an essay that accompanied the mixtape for those who like to dig deep. But, really, I found that the mix stands on its own and doesn't need too much explanation.

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"The time has come to elevate the popular understanding of Dr. King. For too long, we have been drenched with the "I Have A Dream" speech. The philosophical depth of Dr. King's last years have been eschewed so that we don't realize that the exact same issues he was dealing with from 1966-1968 are the same ones we are experiencing now in an intensified form. This mix can be used as a teaching tool, a conversation starter, a road trip mix, etc. It is an effort to bring independent, unsanctioned media to grassroots communities for the deliberate purpose of political education and organizing."
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Peace in Afghanistan: touring exhibition

Windows and Mirrors NYC (The Children of Afghanistan)

Al Jazeera: In search of an African revolution

International media is following protests across the 'Arab world' but ignoring those in Africa.

Demonstrations are continuing across the Middle East, interrupted only by the call for prayer when protesters fall to their knees on cheap carpets and straw mats and the riot police take a tea break. Egypt, in particular, with its scenes of unrelenting protesters staying put in Tahrir Square, playing guitars, singfing, treating the injured and generally making Gandhi’s famous salt march of the 1940s look like an act of terror, captured the imagination of an international media and audience more familiar with the stereotype of Muslim youth blowing themselves and others up.

A non-violent revolution was turning the nation full circle, much to the admiration of the rest of the world.

"I think Egypt's cultural significance and massive population were very important factors in ensuring media coverage," says Ethan Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices, an international community of online activists.

"International audiences know at least a few facts about Egypt, which makes it easier for them to connect to news there," he says, drawing a comparison with Bahrain, a country Zuckerman says few Americans would be able to locate on a map.

Zuckerman also believes that media organisations were in part motivated by a "sense of guilt" over their failure to effectively cover the Tunisian revolution and were, therefore, playing "catch up" in Egypt.

"Popular revolutions make for great TV," he adds. "The imagery from Tahrir square in particular was very powerful and led to a story that was easy for global media to cover closely."

Protestation Across the Nation: LIBYA

Al-Jazeera:
Libya protests spread and intensify

Diplomats resign and air force officers defect as Gaddafi government resorts to shooting and bombing to crush uprising.

Community Music

track list & music after jump

Virtual Reality to Real Reality & the Invisible Shape of the Capitalist Paradigm

About a year ago was a story in the news about a South Korean young couple that got so addicted to gaming at this 24 hour gaming room that they neglected their own baby until it died- devastating (see story).  A DivergentConvergence contributor did these paintings in response to that story and "to show how something that can be fun (I personally enjoyed Nintendo as a kid- though the time I was allowed to play was limited) can turn into something dangerous if the market is simply based on a hedonistic sense of supply and demand. This seems congruous to neo-liberal thought and liberal expansion. If the "globalization" that we are experiencing today isn't kept in check, and there isn't a greater sense of duty to the community (individualism) to guide our actions, where does this leave us in our search for morality, responsibility and respect for our surroundings?"

Divergent Convergent Love

Love is one of the most complex and powerful social forces on the planet.  Who actually takes the time to diverge from the capitalistic, oppressive, and narrow conceptions of this omnipotent force in order to actually break it down and understand what it means?  Well, Stevie Wonder for one.  This piece from the rasx context @ kintespace may be years old, but it is probably one of the best things I ever read on the internet.

Stevie Wonder's Key of Life
Let me summarize in 1960s sci-fi terms: Stevie Wonder (Steveland Morris) set out on a “mission” like a “mad scientist” to “invent” the “greatest love song” ever. After the rise of the gangsta rap aesthetic, it should sound strange to a twenty-something in the year 2007 to imagine a time in pop music when self-described Black recording artists (with a capital B) would compete against each other with love songs. Just imagine gangs of Black dudes trying to out love one another! What is sad is that today’s youth would more accept the possibility of a singer or a rapper competing with knowledge of ballistics, vehicles, jewelry or food rather than this thing called “love.”

So, back in the day, Stevie Wonder lived and thrived in what is now the ‘alien’ world of the “love” song. And when Songs in the Key of Life was released September 1976, the opinion here is that our “mad scientist” achieved his goal in the form of a song called “As” (on CD disk 2, track 6). You see, one too many self-described Black pop artists in the 1970s put on African costumes and inconvenient disco boots—but few barely could see the nature of African consciousness. The poetic irony is that a blind man in America could catch a glimpse of the ancient African Old Kingdom. When you need the white executive summary of what ancient Africa was all about, the short answer is this: Africa was about the complex, technical challenge of populating the Earth in a responsible manner. So ‘we’ properly-trained Americans know about the “great” Space Race—‘we’ even accept the slang “rocket scientist” without a thought. Well, the great-society mission of our Africans of the Old Kingdom was being fruitful and multiplying.

Egypt: power of popular dissent and limits of peaceful protest

Egypt: Tariq Ramadan & Slavoj Zizek The Muslim scholar and philosopher discuss the power of popular dissent and the limits of peaceful protest

Revolution in DRC via Education and an Army of Women

Fighting Congo’s Ills With Education and an Army of Women 

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

(source: New York Times)

BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo — For years, diplomats, aid workers, academics and government officials here have been vexed almost to the point of paralysis about how to attack this country’s staggering problem of sexual violence, in which hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, many quite sadistically, by the various armed groups who haunt the hills of eastern Congo.


Sending in more troops has compounded the problem. United Nations peacekeepers have failed to stop it. Would reforming the Congolese military work? Building up the Congolese state? Pushing harder to regulate so-called conflict minerals to starve the rebels of an income?


For Ms. Ensler, the feminist playwright who wrote “The Vagina Monologues” and who has worked closely with Congolese women, the answer was simple.


“You build an army of women,” she said. “And when you have enough women in power, they take over the government and they make different decisions. You’ll see. They’ll say ‘Uh-uh, we’re not taking this any longer,’ and they’ll put an end to this rape problem fast.”

PsychoSocioEconominosis (Modern Irrational Individualism, Social Maladjustment, and Unconscious Consumerism) to the Empathetic Civilization

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.

Changing Education Paradigms

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

Revolutions without self-proclaimed revolutionaries

With decentralised organizing structures and the absence of a leadership vanguard, events in Egypt and Tunisia point to an emergent mode of revolutionary organisation, argues Horace Campbell, one which provides new lessons for mobilisation around progressive change and non-violence.