A young life cut short, a protest remembrance

Aaron Swartz2008
Wikipedia image

Who was Aaron Swartz?

 Notes edited, end comment by Carolyn Bennett

The eldest son of Susan and Robert Swartz, the latter founder of the software firm Mark Williams Company, Chicago-native Aaron Swartz was a high school dropout and an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist who in 2013 was found dead in his Brooklyn, New York, apartment, having “hanged himself.”

Swartz contributed to the development of the web feed format RSS, the organization Creative Commons, the website framework web.py, and the social news site, Reddit, in which he became a partner after its merger with his company, Infogami. He then “focused on sociology, civic awareness, and activism”: founded Watchdog.net, “‘the good government site with teeth,’ to aggregate and visualize data about politicians”, and wrote Open Access Guerilla Manifesto (2008); helped launch Progressive Change Campaign Committee “to learn more about effective online activism” (2009); conducted research studies on political corruption (academic year 2010-2011 at Harvard University).

Aaron Swartz2012Wikipedia image

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on January 6, 2011, arrested Swartz. The charge was “state breaking-and-entering” for having “systematically download[ed] academic journal articles from JSTOR” (pronounced jay-stor, short for Journal Storage, a digital library founded in 1995). “Federal prosecutors later charged him with 2 counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” These charges carried cumulative penalties of “$1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release.” In 2013, two days after the prosecution denied his counsel’s “second offer of a plea bargain, Aaron Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn, New York, apartment, where he had hanged himself.”

T

he vast majority of people could live a thousand years and never come close to the accomplishments of this young man. A brilliant life cut short: Aaron Hillel Swartz, November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013). Murderers commit high crimes, retain their high offices, and get off scot-free. How sad.

Sources and notes

Wikipedia biographical notes on Aaron Swartz, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTOR

Today “The Day We Fight Back”: broad coalition of activist groups, companies, and online platforms hold a worldwide day of activism in opposition to the NSA’s mass spying regime; in remembrance of activist, technologist Aaron Swartz; protest “in his honor, in celebration of victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act he helped spur” https://thedaywefightback.org/press/

https://thedaywefightback.org/?r=ca
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Women U.S. diplomats exemplify worst male aggression, arrogance, extremism

Dangerous to domestic, international relations

Editing and comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

Author and journalist Finian Cunningham asks, “What is it about America’s women diplomats?” And concludes that women diplomats “seem so hard and cloned — bereft of any humanity or intelligence. … [F]ar from displaying female independence, they are pathetic copies of the worst traits in American male politicians — aggressive, arrogant and completely arrant in their views.” Cunningham’s principal examples in his Sunday article are the clearly unqualified U.S. Department of State officials Victoria Nuland and Wendy Sherman.

Social worker turned senior officer at State

U.S. Department of State Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Ruth Sherman holds the third highest-ranking position in the U.S. Department of State. Her experiential credits include working as a social worker, director of EMILY’s list (acronym for “Early Money Is Like Yeast”,   a political action committee that helps elect pro-choice Democratic Party female candidates to office), director of the State of Maryland’s office of child welfare, and founding president of the Fannie Mae Foundation. The William Jefferson Clinton government employed her as Counselor of the United States Department of State and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State and North Korea Policy Coordinator. Well beyond her qualifications, she was, under Clinton, “instrumental in negotiations related to North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs.” She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in sociology and urban studies, and social work from Boston and Maryland universities.

Vicious appointee turned senior officer at State

U.S. Department of State Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Jane Nuland (original family name Nudelman), a Wikipedia article recalls,  has been “one of the key figures … accused by various sources of initiating a cover up of the 2012 Benghazi (Libya) attack.

After reading the first draft of the State Department talking points that stated that the incident was a coordinated terrorist attack, she [Nuland] sent a message writing that they ‘could be abused by members of Congress to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why would we want to seed the Hill.’

After [Nuland’s] memo, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was given talking points that formed the basis of her statements on [media programs] This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Meet the Press, State of the Union with Candy Crowley, and Fox News Sunday.

More recently, Victoria Jane Nuland was exposed making an “obscene reference to the European Union.” In a January 28, 2014, telephone conversation with the United States Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, broadcast February 6, 2014, on YouTube her “obscene reference to the European Union” and her belittling of heads of state and the United Nations “caused a diplomatic scandal.”

Appointed by three administrations, Nuland was a Foreign Service Officer, chief of staff to the Clinton government’s deputy secretary of state, then deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs. She was the George W. Bush/Richard Cheney government’s principal deputy foreign policy adviser then U.S. ambassador to NATO; then the Barack Obama government’s special envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, State Department spokesperson then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Nuland holds a Brown University undergraduate degree.

“In her previous posting as a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department,” Cunningham continued, “Nuland had the demeanor of a robotic matron with a swivel eye. Now in her new role of covertly rallying anti-government protesters in Ukraine, Nuland has emerged to sound like a bubblegum-chewing Mafia doll.” As to Sherman, he wrote, she “is another flinty-eyed female specimen of the American political class, who, like Nuland, seems to have a block of ice for a heart and a frozen Popsicle for a brain.” These women “illustrate the cold-hearted logic at work in American robotic politics: it’s a system programmed for imperialism and war, and it doesn’t matter whether the officials are Democratic, Republican, male or female; they are all clones of a war criminal state.”

Perhaps such women officials — “in the goldfish-bowl environment of Washington politics…” where “the uniform monopoly of America’s political class is dictated by militarism (weapons manufacturers, oil companies and Zionist lobbyists) … — are to be even more feared,” Cunningham concludes. “The only way to ‘succeed’ in this cesspool is to be even more aggressive and imperialist than your peers.”

Ignorance, incompetence, vulnerability

Incompetence means, as the English put it, you are not “fit for purpose.” You are not up to the job to which someone has appointed you or voters have elected you. Ignorance is either a state of genuine unknowing, you cannot help yourself; or it is arrogantly willful, you know you don’t know and just do not care, qualifications don’t count with you and your class. In any case, ignorance and incompetence together with a character lacking in moral and human sensibility weaken person and position leaving both at the mercy of pernicious manipulative forces. In high level, influential positions — whether in government or in religious, NGO, non/not-for profit industries, or private corporations — they are terribly dangerous to their country and to the world. These women (I agree with Cunningham) — together with the whole of government in federal Washington — stand exposed before the world.

I am a feminist. I believe women are and must be different and that their difference is imperative to constructive change in domestic and international affairs. In their own right, women should hold positions in whatever area, whatever position they choose. I also believe women should be clearly qualified in every way to hold those positions so that they are not vulnerable to and dangerously at the mercy of nor put others at the mercy of entrenched pernicious forces.  

Sources and notes

“Washington's cloned female warmongers” by Finian Cunningham, February 9, 2014,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/09/349910/washingtons-cloned-female-warmongers/

Finian Cunningham

East Africa-based author, journalist, columnist on international politics for Press TV and the Strategic Culture Foundation Finian Cunningham “is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring, based on eyewitness experience working in the Persian Gulf as an editor of a business magazine and subsequently as a freelance news correspondent.”  He was “deported from Bahrain in June 2011” where he had been reporting on “systematic human rights violations by regime forces.” Native of Belfast, Ireland and former editor and writer for news outlets such as The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent, Finian Cunningham has also credits as a musician.

Nuland and Sherman biographical notes from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Sherman

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Arresting thoughts worth pondering: Walsh, Lantier’s U.S. sinister “Imperialist ‘Left’”

Wolves in sheep’s clothing

Excerpts, minor edit by 

Carolyn Bennett

U.S. domestic imperialist “Left”

“For more than twenty years,” WSWS editor David Walsh writes, “one wave after another of former radicals and liberals has signed up for Western intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Haiti, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Libya, Syria and elsewhere to forestall ‘genocide,’ avert ‘mass atrocities,’ block the use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘chemical weapons,’ stop the spread of ‘Islamo-fascism,’ bring ‘democracy’ and ‘stability’ to various global flashpoints, and so forth.

“These social forces, whose task is to confuse and benumb the population with arguments that falsely make use of ‘left’ terminology and phrases, have become prominent mouthpieces for imperialist policy.…”

However,  Walsh concludes, “genuine political health and wisdom begin in the U.S. and internationally … by separating and demarcating oneself as firmly and distinctly as possible from the phony ‘human rights’ campaigners, the feminist moralizers, and the pro-imperialist ‘left.’”

U.S. international imperialist “Left”

WSWS writer Alex Lantier commenting on a recent “‘Open letter on the future of Ukraine’ issued by a group of Western academics and foreign policy operatives” calls it “a vile defense of the ongoing far-right protests in Ukraine supported by Washington and the European Union (EU).”  This letter, he says, “peddles the old lie, repeated over nearly a quarter century of imperialist wars and interventions in Eastern Europe since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991: that U.S. and EU policy is driven only by a disinterested love of democracy and human rights.”

Some of the signers of this open letter “are top diplomats or ‘non-governmental’ imperialist operatives … [but most] are academics and intellectuals who are lending their names to give credibility to far-right reaction in Ukraine, through a foul combination of learned ignorance and historic blindness.…

“After decades of intellectual war on Marxism in universities and the media,” Lantier concludes, “cultural life is in a disastrous state … and these layers [of Western academics and foreign policy operatives] are left unmoved by imperialist crimes — the destruction of Fallujah during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the drone murder campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, their pens spring into action when EU politicians excite their moral glands by denouncing regimes targeted for imperialist intervention. They can be led by the nose, even behind fascists, with a few empty invocations of human rights.”

Sources and notes

“In latest ‘human rights’ crusade, NY Times’ Kristof promotes allegations against Woody Allen” by David Walsh, February 5, 2014, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/05/alle-f05.html

“Ukraine and the Pro-Imperialist Intellectuals” by Alex Lantier, Global Research, February 5, 2014, World Socialist Web Site [Region: Europe, Russia and FSU], http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-and-the-pro-imperialist-intellectuals/5367496

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/05/pers-f05.html

Alex Lantier writes regularly for the World Socialist Web Site and his articles have appeared in a variety of other news sources online, including Global Research (Ca.), Countercurrents and Axis of Logic.

Writer and journalist David Walsh is arts editor of the World Socialist Web Site and writes about film, the arts, politics and history.  http://www.indiewire.com/critic/david_walsh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walsh_(writer)

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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CELAC declares peace culture: friendly relations, respect for self-determination, sovereignty, human rights, international law

CELAC Proclamation

Excerpt, end brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Proclamation of Latin America and Caribbean as a zone of peace (Original signed by the Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), Wednesday January 29, 2014

“…Cognizant also of the catastrophic global and long-term humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and the ongoing discussions on this issue … Declare[d] (eight points):

Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace based on respect for the principles and rules of International Law, including the international instruments to which Member States are a party to, the Principles and Purposes of the United Nations Charter;

Our permanent commitment to solve disputes through peaceful means with the aim of uprooting forever threat or use of force in our region;

The commitment of the States of the region with their strict obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

The commitment of the peoples of Latin American and Caribbean to foster cooperation and friendly relations among themselves and with other nations irrespective of differences in their political, economic, and social systems or development levels; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors;

The commitment of the Latin American and Caribbean  States to fully respect for the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social, and cultural  system, as essential conditions to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations;

The promotion in the region of a culture of peace based, inter alia, on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace;

The commitment of the States in the region to guide themselves by this Declaration in their International behavior;

The commitment of the States of the region to continue promoting nuclear disarmament as a priority objective and to contribute with general and complete disarmament, to foster the strengthening of confidence  among nations;

“We urge all Member States of the International Community to fully respect this Declaration in their relations with CELAC Member States in witness of the undersigned having duly signed this Proclamation in Havana, on the 29th day of the month of January of 2014, in a copy written in the Spanish, English, French and Portuguese languages.”

HEAR! HEAR!  

Well done.

Sources and notes

Zone of Peace declared

Summit: Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) gathered in Havana, Cuba, on January 28 and 29, 2014 at the Second Summit, on behalf of their peoples and faithfully interpreting their hopes and aspirations … signed declaration, http://celac.cubaminrex.cu/en/articles/proclamation-latin-america-and-caribbean-zone-peace-original-signed-heads-state-and-governm

 

T

he Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is a regional group of Latin American and Caribbean states which rose out of the February 23, 2010 Rio Group–Caribbean Community Unity Summit and was established on December 3, 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela, with the signature “The Declaration of Caracas.” CELAC consists of 33 sovereign countries in the Americas representing roughly 600 million people.

CELAC Member States: 33 countries speaking five different languages: 

Eighteen Spanish-speaking countries (56 percent of the area/63 percent of the population)
Argentina
Bolivia	Chile
Colombia	Costa Rica
Cuba	Dominican Republic
Ecuador	El Salvador
Guatemala	Honduras
Mexico	Nicaragua
Panama	Paraguay
Peru	Uruguay
Venezuela
One Portuguese-speaking country (42 percent of the area/34 percent of the population)	Brazil
	One French-speaking country (0.1 percent of the area/1.6 percent of the population)
	Haiti
Twelve English-speaking countries (1.3 percent of the area/1.1 percent of the population)
Antigua and Barbuda	Bahamas
Barbados	Dominica
Belize	Guyana
Grenada	Saint Lucia
Jamaica	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Trinidad and Tobago
One Dutch-speaking country (0.8 percent of the area/0.1 percent of the population)	Suriname
	Twelve countries are in South America: 87 percent of the area/68 percent of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Latin_American_and_Caribbean_States

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Gallery of Authentically Magnificent Women

Pleasure of their company

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

North American Women Leaders of African Descent: 19th-20th centuries

Shadd

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

“When Mary Ann Shadd Cary died in 1893, her commitment to justice remained. Her legacy, however, would not be fully appreciated until feminist and anti-racist scholars began her overdue recovery at the close of the 20th century.” Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s “insistence that ‘We should do more, and talk less’ (Cimbala, 19) [still rings] true, as [does] her hopes for progressive alliances.” [Canadian historian Veronica Strong-Boag]

Wells

Ida B. Wells

This prominent 20th century U.S. rights activist, educator and journalist is also often absent from history texts. Ida B. Wells (Barnett) investigated, decried and published material about lynching in the USA; and during the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, she insisted on being visibly present, daring to march despite objections among the ranks of Anglo women suffragists, and thus cracking the door into integrating not only the Woman’s Suffrage Movement but the larger movement for women’s rights in America.  [Mocha Memoirs Press]

Baker

Ella Baker

“I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader, because unfortunately in our culture, the charismatic leader usually becomes a leader because he has found a spot in the public limelight. . .  In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.” [Ella Baker]

 

Shirley Chisholm

Chisholm

“…Politics as practiced in the United States is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years; its practitioners exchange gilded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own, their votes; and the lawyers benefit most.… Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is ‘don’t rock the boat.’ If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it; if you can’t get him, bring him in: Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he’ll be good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incomprehensible to most politicians. …Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism; and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed [to] the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free.”  [Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed]

Hamer

“We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. … You can pray until you faint, but if you don’t get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.… [T]he time now is to stand up. Stand up for your constitutional right and one day, if we keep on standing up, we won’t have to take this literacy test—to copy a section of the constitution of Mississippi that we had never seen, and interpret it too. … One day we won’t have all of this to do. We’ll keep right on walking, and we’ll keep right on talking, and we’ll keep right on marching.” [Fannie Lou Hamer “We’re On Our Way”]

Unquestionable Magnificence

African American women (women of African descent) have contributed “significantly and magnificently to the survival, liberation and well-being of families, communities and nations, and to the elevation of the whole of society and humanity.” [Visions & Victories: Voices from the World Africa Community]

Sources and notes

Ida B.Wells-Barnett née Ida Bell Wells (journalist, educator, women’s/civil rights activist/leader) born July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, Mississippi; died March 25, 1931, Chicago, Illinois

Fannie Lou Hamer née Townsend (voting rights/civil rights activist/leader/campaigner) born October 6, 1917, Ruleville, Mississippi; died March 14, 1977, Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Shirley Chisholm née Shirley Anita St. Hill (pioneering politician) born November 30, 1924, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.; died January 1, 2005, Ormond Beach, Florida

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher and lawyer) born October 9, 1823, Wilmington, Delaware; died June 5, 1893, Washington, D.C.

Ella Josephine Baker (community organizer, political activist/civil rights leader) born December 13, 1903, Norfolk, Virginia; died December 13, 1986, New York City

Biographical briefs, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica

“For Racial and Women’s Equality: the Politics of Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893), January 24, 2014, posted by Strong-Boag, Veronica in Biographical, North America, http://womensuffrage.org/?p=22346

Dr. Veronica Strong-Boag is Women’s History Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia

“Ida B. Wells-Barnett – Feminist Threat,” April 15, 2013,

http://mochamemoirspress.blogspot.com/2013/04/ida-b-wells-barnett-feminist-threat.html

“Truth, Beauty, Wisdom & Courage in Women of African Descent,” posted on March 7, 2011

http://hcvoice.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/405/

Visions & Victories: Voices from the World Africa Community, http://hcvoice.wordpress.com

A roll call of sorts: Queen Tiye, Ahmose-Nefertari, Queen Hatshepsut, Queen Istnofret, Queen Nefertari, Makeda (Queen of Sheba), Queen Nzingha, Lucy Terry, Phyllis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Edmonia Lewis, Queen Mother Moore, Fannie Lou Hamer, Barbara Jordan, Marian Anderson, Jane Matilda Bolin, Lorraine Hansberry

Rebecca Cole, Hallie Quinn Brown, Harriet Jacobs, Mary Jane Patterson, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Susie King Taylor, Mary Church Terrell, Mary Murray Washington, Madam C.J. Walker, Elizabeth Keckley, Susan McKinney Stewart, Mary Eliza Mahoney, A’Lelia Walker, Sarah Goode, Emma Frances Grayson Merritt, Octavia Albert, Janie Porter Barrett, Shirley Chisholm, Mary McLeod Bethune  Mary Jane Patterson, Sadie M. Alexander, Eva B. Dykes, Georgianna R. Simpson, Charlotte E. Ray

Zora Neale Hurston, Ariel Williams Holloway, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Ella Baker, Susan McKinney,  Rebecca Lee,    Merlie   Evers-Williams, Rosa Parks, Amy Jacques Garvey, Daisy Bates, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lena Horne, Frances Elliot Davis, Pearl Bailey, Bessie Coleman, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Coretta Scott King, Althea Gibson, Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone, Augusta Savage, Nina Simone, Barbara Jordan, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Patricia R. Harris, Hazel Johnson

http://hcvoice.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/405/

Ella Baker quotes, http://www.quote-coyote.com/quotes/authors/b/ella-baker/

Shirley Chisholm quotes from Unbought and Unbossed, http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1255337-unbought-and-unbossed

“We’re On Our Way,” Fannie Lou Hamer Speech Text: Speech before a Mass Meeting held at the Negro Baptist School in Indianola, Mississippi (September 1964)

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

Egregiously off path of a great nation’s promise

WSWS political analyst Joseph Kishore pens “Obama’s legacy”

Excerpting, editing, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

I know of no principled, law-abiding leader or citizen who aspires to this epitaphic litany

Ordering the assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process

Former constitutional law professor his initial job was with a CIA-linked corporation, the first president in U.S. history to boast openly of executing a U.S. citizen (Anwar al-Awlaki) without judicial review. More than any other, his administration has sought to institutionalize and bureaucratize extra-judicial state killing, presiding over weekly meetings and the drawing up of ‘kill lists’ to select targets for U.S. drone missiles.

 

Vastly expanding the global police state spying apparatus

The Edward Snowden revelations expose a spying apparatus that operates without constraint, monitoring the communications of virtually every person on the planet.

Criminalizing those who reveal government crimes

The Obama government’s attitude toward democratic rights is reflected in the fate of those who exposed illegal state actions: Bradley Manning’s in prison, Julian Assange’s trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in Britain, and Edward Snowden’s forced into exile in Russia and facing death threats from U.S. officials.

Yet the administration adamantly opposes prosecution of government officials who ordered torture and committed war crimes.

Waging war without limit

The Obama government continues its predecessor’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sends countless drone missiles to pulverize targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries; in 2011 initiated a war in Libya to overthrow and murder head of state Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi; for the past two years, with its allies, financed and armed an Islamist-dominated opposition in Syria, igniting civil war that has taken the lives of tens of thousands and turned millions of Syrians into refugees.

 

The Obama government has carried out a ‘pivot to Asia’ to militarily encircle and economically and diplomatically undermine China. It has deliberately provoked regional tensions that, a hundred years after the eruption of World War I, threaten to unleash a new global conflict.

Overseeing, in the world’s documented history, the greatest transfer of wealth from poor people to rich people 

2008 bailout of the banks and the “quantitative easing” expanded by the Obama government saw corporate profits rise higher than ever — while wage growth dropped to its lowest level since the end of the Second World War. Wage collapse, for the first time in history, has resulted in the majority of U.S. food stamp recipients being of working age.

Giving a free pass to Wall Street criminals

Shielded, not a single top banker held accountable for the crimes committed and the disaster inflicted on the world’s populations. 

Carrying out a social counterrevolution, beginning with the decimation of health care for workers under Obamacare

Leading a relentless assault on every social program, … the Obama government boasts its lowering of domestic discretionary spending to its lowest share of the U.S. economy since the 1950s. 

J

oseph Kishore concludes, the Obama government “has operated with the support of the trade unions and the liberal and ‘left’ forces, wedded to identity politics that championed his election in 2008 as a ‘transformative’ event in American history.” This latest “State of the Union address will be aimed in large part at providing a phony ‘reformist’ image around which these forces can coalesce to bolster support for the Democratic Party and block the emergence of an independent movement of the working class.…

Perhaps [U.S. President Barack] Obama’s most significant legacy will be that his administration demonstrated to millions that the ruling class has absolutely nothing to offer; and that it presides over an economic system, capitalism, that is historically bankrupt.

“The conclusion that follows, and is beginning to be drawn by wider sections of the working class,” Kishore writes,  “is that it [the economic system] must be overthrown.”

Sources and notes

“Obama’s legacy: This evening, Barack Obama delivers his fifth State of the Union address, an annual political tradition that over the years has become a hollow ritual, with little or no relationship between the president’s words and the actual state of U.S. society. This year will be no different” by Joseph Kishore, January 28, 2014, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/28/pers-j28.html

Joseph Kishore is a Senior Political Analyst with the World Socialist Web Site and is affiliated with (National Secretary) and on the board of the Socialist Equality Party http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Joseph-Kishore/1309816212

The World Socialist Web Site, published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, features daily news and analysis written from a socialist perspective, and commentary on the arts, culture, history, and politics. http://www.zoominfo.com/c/World-Socialist-Web-Site/302628879

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Authentic artistry lives and lasts: Mozart, Mirren

Deserved acclaim for the virtuoso 

Excerpting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

Dame Helen

Along with Dench, Dame Helen Mirren is my all-time favorite actor, for her high-level of skill, originality, intelligent creativity, and consistently accomplished versatility. I know of nothing she could undertake that she would not make great: from head housekeeper in Gosford Park to The Queen, and of course, that tough yet vulnerable Prime Suspect series police detective Jane Tennnison. Mirren has no peer among American actors, who are not so much artists as they are affected exhibitionists, celebrities with baggage, “movie stars.” Helen Mirren is a true virtuoso with staying power. Her work, her performance in film will live to eternity.

Is it any wonder, then, that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is honoring Dame Helen Mirren with the Academy Fellowship to be presented February 16 at the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House, London?

Reading from its website, “The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is an independent charity that supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public.”

Dame Helen has won four BAFTAs out of eleven nominations, an Academy Award, three Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards. She is the only actor to have taken on film roles of Queen Elizabeth the First and the Second. For her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film “The Queen”, Mirren received a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress.

“Mirren’s career,” BAFTA said in its press release, “is a model of how to balance box office success with critical acclaim.” Quoted in the release, Chairman John Willis said, “Dame Helen Mirren receives the Fellowship as one of the most outstanding actresses of her generation. Dame Helen’s incredibly successful career is testament to the determination, dedication and skill she brings to each of her roles.”

Past recipients of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave.

Dame Helen’s acting career started in the 1960s, sparkled 1980s, then soared. Acclaim deserved by a performer, without peer. Hear! Hear!

Also in today’s news: Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, another exceptionally accomplished artist: born today in Austria two hundred and fifty-eight years ago

This virtuoso “wrote in all the musical genres of his day and excelled in every one.” At the age of three, Mozart is said to have been “picking out chords on the harpsichord”; at age four “he was playing short pieces”; and at age five, he was “composing.” When he was six years old, his father, Leopold Mozart, “took him to Munich to play at the Bavarian court”; a few months later, they went to Vienna and performed “at the imperial court and in noble houses.”

At the time of his death, the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music”; he “was widely regarded not only as the greatest composer of the time but also as a bold and ‘difficult’ [composer].” 

  

Sources and notes

“Dame Helen Mirren To Be Honoured With BAFTA Fellowship: On Sunday 16 February, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will present Dame Helen Mirren with the Academy Fellowship at the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House, London”, http://www.bafta.org/press/dame-helen-mirren-to-be-honoured-with-bafta-fellowship,316,SNS.html

“Dame Helen Mirren - BAFTA Fellow in 2014,” January 16, 2014, http://www.bafta.org/film/awards/helen-mirren-fellowship-2014,4076,BA.html

“In addition to its Awards ceremonies, BAFTA has a year-round Learning & Events programme that offers unique access to some of the world’s most inspiring talent through workshops, masterclasses, lectures and mentoring schemes, connecting with audiences of all ages and backgrounds across the UK, Los Angeles and New York. BAFTA relies on income from membership subscriptions, individual donations, trusts, foundations and corporate partnerships to support its ongoing outreach work,” www.bafta.org            or www.bafta.org/guru .

“Helen Mirren to receive Bafta fellowship: Oscar-winning actor hails news of award as ‘the greatest professional honour I can imagine’” by Ben Child, theguardian.com, Monday 27 January 2014 07.39 EST, http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/27/helen-mirren-bafta-fellowship

IMAGE: HELEN MIRREN at BAFTA site photo credit Giles Keyte 14908

Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,  baptized as  Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Archbishopric of Salzburg [Austria], died December 5, 1791, Vienna. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus.  (2013). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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