Find a way to get involved, make propaganda, join a group, bring the issues up in your group, PARTICIPATE in the #FearlessSummer

This summer we are escalating action against the Fossil Fuel industry! The stakes are rising & Fearless Summer is our response – a coalition of grassroots groups standing together against extreme energy. 

Fearless Summer will start with a week of action, but it’s much more than that. Fearless Summer is about mutual aid and cross-pollination. It’s about not allowing ourselves to be divided.

Like Fearless Summer on Facebook (on Tumblr here) and join us the June 24-29 week of action.

And join Rising Tide Seattle’s tar sands profiteers’ bike tour Friday June 28th.

Expect resistance. 

Thanks to Rising Tide Seattle for the second meme & Tar Sands Blockade for the information.

We need a movement focused on dismantling the fossil fuel industry and restoring balance to the earth. People are increasingly aware of and exhausted from the environmental devastation happening daily on our planet. The opportunity for a large-scale agitated movement is high. There is so much opportunity for intersectional opportunity for movement work regarding food-access for low income urban communities, indigenous sovereignty/recognition & admission that colonialism has led to this terrible environmental moment, etc.

There are more & more humans who are involved in this struggle and these are issues that affect people’s lives/livelihood. It’s a great opportunity to talk about capitalism and the profit motive. We need an environmental movement on the scale of what we’ve seen around the world – bigger, wiser & more resilient than occupy. Driven by our desire to survive & move beyond the post-industrial trash that was handed to us.

Standing people movement spreads across Turkey as new tactics evolve in response to government suppression
June 19, 2013

Lunchtime in the waterfront district of Beşiktaş in Istanbul on Tuesday and Ismail Orhan has been standing silently under a yellow parasol in the blistering heat for more than four hours.

“We’ll be here for weeks, for months,” said the 25-year-old, as office workers used their lunch break to join a new wave of passive resistance to the authorities.

Instantly dubbed the “standing man” or “standing people” protest, fuelled rapidly by Twitter and other social media, the mute, peaceful, immobile gesture of resistance to a government that has used brute force to dispel three weeks of protest was launched on Monday evening in Istanbul’s Taksim Square by a performance artist, Erdem Gündüz. The “stand-in” instantly spread like a virus.

Silent protesters swelled into hundreds across different parts of Istanbul, to Ankara, Izmir and Antalya. About 10 were detained by police in Istanbul after refusing to move, but were quickly released.

In front of Orhan, by a sculpture of an eagle, were two pairs of flipflops, two pairs of trainers and a pair of tiny baby’s bootees – in remembrance of the four people killed during the unprecedented street unrest of the past three weeks and for the pregnant woman who lost her baby when riot police teargassed a luxury hotel on Saturday where terrified protesters and wounded were sheltering.

Tahsin, 63, a bank employee who did not want to use his full name, spent his lunch break joining the handful of protesters, who included elderly women.

“I’m supporting everything that’s been going on peacefully for the last two weeks. I wouldn’t think we could be arrested. That would be really far fetched,” he said.

Hundreds more joined them at different locations. Some brought books to settle in for a long haul. Bottles of water were the most common accompaniment in a poignant and dignified display of rebellion against a government increasingly seen as high-handed and out of touch.

“I’m just stopping, standing, not speaking. Just drinking water,” said Merve Uslu, 21, a student. “I heard about the standing man and it touched my heart so much. I don’t support clashes with police but we’re just resisting basically.”

Elsewhere in the city early on Tuesday, however, the Turkish police swooped on dozens of hard-left activists, arresting more than 90 people in the first big clampdown since the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, ordered police to fire tear gas and use water cannons in their attack on Saturday evening to clear Gezi Park of thousands of demonstrators, inciting a night of violence across much of central Istanbul.

Erdoğan’s confrontational response to the challenge to his 10-year rule has shocked much of Turkey and brought growing criticism internationally.

On Tuesday, the UN’s human rights commissioner, Navi Pillay, called for officials and security forces using excessive force to be punished.

“It is important that the authorities recognise that the initial, extremely heavy-handed response to the protests, which resulted in many injuries, is still a major part of the problem,” she said.

But the message from Erdoğan was the very opposite as he divided Turkey into friends and foes, and characterised the largely peaceful protests of recent weeks as orchestrated violence.

“Thanks to this process, we know our enemies and allies as they came out and showed their true colours,” said the prime minister.

“The police have been represented as using violence. Who used violence? All of the terrorists, the anarchists, the rioters … In the face of a comprehensive and systematic movement of violence, the police displayed an unprecedented democratic stance and successfully passed the test of democracy.”

In addition to Tuesday’s arrests, at least 90 protesters were detained during the weekend violence. According to Turkish media reports on Tuesday, most have been released but 13 are to be brought before the courts, which human rights monitors say have been increasingly politicised under Erdoğan.

A lawyer who wished to remain anonymous said the number of arbitrary arrests was very worrying. “Many of those arrested over the course of these protests have been denied access to lawyers for hours; they were made to wait for a long time, some are still waiting,” she said. “A red line has definitely been crossed with this.”

The prime minister also came under strong attack from other parts of the political spectrum. Selahattin Demirtaş, a co-leader of the main Kurdish political party, the BDP, harshly criticised the government’s stance.

Directing his remarks at Erdoğan, he said: “At the moment you look like a leader who tries to stay in power with the help of tanks and batons … This is a movement of the people and you are trying to pit the people against the people.”

With the police still out in force on Taksim Square and municipal workers rolling out new lawns, planting rose gardens and new magnolia trees in Gezi Park, the cradle of the rebellion, there were calls for the protest to shift to other park areas across the country on Tuesday evening.

Police weariness appears to be growing, as well as sympathy for the mainly young people they have been confronting for weeks. “This is a good way of demonstrating, a very good way,” one riot police officer said of the stand-in. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with peaceful protests; that should be everybody’s right.”

He laughed when asked if he would consider joining: “I have been standing here for two weeks already anyway.”

Determined to carry on with his act of civil disobedience, Orhan said he and his fellow protesters just wanted “peace and democracy”. If protesting entailed the prospect of arrest, so be it.

“Under normal circumstances it should not be a crime to just stand here peacefully. But in Erdoğan’s Turkey, everything is possible.”

Source

thesmithian:

…up to 200,000 people angry with high costs and poor public services took to the streets. Protesters in Rio de Janeiro burned cars and looted buildings as police attempted to disperse them with teargas and rubber bullets. Aerial images showed thousands of people attempting to storm the congress building in Brasilia. The rallies…are some of the biggest ever seen in the country…

more.

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

designtherevolution:

fathommythoughts:

hazzlur:

laughterbynight:

thegeekmonkey:

actualhumandisaster:

awayy:

tank-commander:

underthevastblueseas:

Blackfish - Trailer

Beyond the lies, beneath the deception, the truth will surface.

Magnolia Pictures has debuted the trailer for the chilling Sundance documentary Blackfish, directed Gabriela Cowperthwaite, about orcas in captivity. 

Holy shit. 

OKAY, WE NEED TO REBLOG THE FUCK OUT OF THIS. EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANIMAL PERSON, YOUR FOLLOWERS NEED TO SEE THIS. ESPECIALLY DURING THE HEIGHT OF VACATION SEASON. DO NOT SUPPORT SEA PARKS WITH CAPTIVE WHALES. IT’S NOT ENVIRONMENTAL PROPAGANDA (I can’t believe I even used those words) IT’S A REAL ISSUE AND IT’S NOT A MATTER OF PROOF, IT’S A MATTER OF COVERING IT UP AND IGNORING IT!

Throughout my entire childhood, I wanted to be a Shamu trainer, and I remember when this happened I realized how horrible it was for these whales to be kept in such small confinements… so I am beyond happy they’ve made a movie covering this stuff…

REBLOG GUYS, SPREAD THE WORD. MAKE IT GO VIRAL. 

designtherevolution:

My wife wrote an article about captive wild animals last year. 

Wild animals kept in captivity, whether born there or captured in the wild, are inherently dangerous. The recently surfaced video of a trainer being held under water by an orca at SeaWorld highlights this reality. No matter how much human contact they receive, these animals remain, at core, unpredictable…

Read more here and watch the video: http://aldf.org/blog/on-protecting-captive-wild-animals-and-nonhuman-animals/

idlenomorewisconsin:

Published on Apr 19, 2013

Here is my Documentary on the Idle no more movement that has taken place in canada. It concerns the federal governments decisions for the water in canada. Which effects the treaty rights of the first nations people.

Great job, great short doc.

I can’t even believe what some of the terrible white men are saying on the news at the beginning of this video. 

n8gallagher:

thepeoplesrecord:

The People’s Record coming to Portland the 20th, leaving the 23rd!

Need recommendations for groups, activists, community leaders etc who would make good interviews that we can reach out to ASAP.

Also need housing offer. We may or may not having something worked out…waiting to hear back. If not, then we have a pretty narrow period of time to find housing for the nights of the 20th, 21st and 22nd. If you can house us for any/all nights, please don’t hesitate to reach out. There are two of us, friendly, easy-going, not-too-weird! Pets are fine, 420 friendly, etc. Really, we’re not fussy at all. The closer to transit the better.

Also looking for recommendations for Seattle interviews!

Email: thepeoplesrec@gmail.com

UPDATE:

Thanks for the recommendations so far. Looks like we have housing for the 21^st. We need housing for the day we come in, the 20^th. Please reblog if you don’t mind, especially if you live around the Portland area or have a lot of friends who do. Feel free to ask around on our behalf.

Help my friends find a place to stay please reblog to Portlanders.

Thanks nate (designtherevolution)! We’re leaving on a greyhound for Portland in a few hours. It’s a 16 hour ride so we still have 24 hours to find housing, but we still don’t have anything worked out for the first night of the 20th. If anyone is willing to put us up for a night, it would be a big help, if you know of any cheap housing alternatives, let us know. That would be great too. 

(via corderohinojosa)

ACLU sues NYPD over unconstitutional Muslim surveillance program
June 18, 2013

The ACLU, together with the NYCLU and CUNY’s CLEAR Project, filed a lawsuit today challenging the New York Police Department’s unconstitutional policy and practice of targeting entire Muslim communities for discriminatory and suspicionless surveillance. The NYPD’s vast religious profiling program has cast an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers, based on nothing more than their religious faith and practice. We represent civic and religious leaders, two mosques, and a charitable organization, all of whom were swept up in the police department’s dragnet surveillance because they are Muslim.

As documented extensively in the NYPD’s own records and in Pulitzer prize-winning reporting by the Associated Press, NYPD officers and informants have routinely monitored mosques and businesses frequented by Muslims, including restaurants and bookstores. The department has also sent paid infiltrators into mosques, Muslim student associations, and beyond to take photos, write down license plate numbers, and keep notes on people simply because they are Muslim. Video surveillance cameras have been mounted outside mosques, recording every person who goes to worship. Maps created and maintained by the NYPD show the location of scores of mosques and Muslim businesses across New York’s five boroughs. A senior NYPD representative has admitted that these mapping activities have not generated a single lead or resulted in even one terrorism investigation.

The NYPD’s discriminatory surveillance is based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny. That is a premise rooted in bias and ignorance, not good law enforcement or fact. It is a premise that is both demonstrably wrong—terrorism is not a Muslim phenomenon—and deeply unfair to the millions of American Muslims who are a law-abiding, diverse, and integral part of our nation and New York City. The NYPD’s surveillance program would be unthinkable if it targeted churches or synagogues, Christian reading rooms or Jewish community centers. The fact that it maps and sends informants into mosques and Muslim-owned businesses is no different. Like all Americans, our Muslim communities are entitled to protection from discriminatory religious profiling and intrusive police surveillance.

The NYPD’s religious profiling has profoundly harmed New York’s Muslim community. Long before the AP confirmed the vast scope of this program, knowledge and fear of unjustified surveillance permeated the community. Our client’s stories how deep the damage has been. The NYPD’s monitoring of mosques has forced religious leaders to censor what they say to their congregants, for fear that their statements could be taken out of context by police officers or informants, resulting in further unjustified scrutiny, or worse. Some religious leaders have felt the need to regularly record their sermons to defend themselves against potential mischaracterizations. Disruptions resulting from NYPD surveillance have also diverted precious time and resources away from religious education and counseling, both of which are part of mosques’ core religious mission. And fear of NYPD surveillance has diminished congregants’ attendance at mosques, prompted distrust of newcomers out of concern that they are NYPD informants, and prevented the mosques from fulfilling their mission of serving as religious sanctuaries.

The same fear of NYPD surveillance has also diminished the ability of charities—like one of our clients, Muslims Giving Back—to raise funds to support their efforts. Muslims Giving Back and one of its leaders, our client Asad Dandia, discovered in October 2012 that the group had been infiltrated for months by a paid NYPD informant posing as a friend and enthusiastic participant in the organization’s religious mission. Since then, mosques have been reluctant to host or support Muslims Giving Back, for fear of other NYPD informants. This type of chronic mistrust cripples the ability of organizations like Muslims Giving Back to solicit the donations from congregants that sustain their charitable activities. Baseless law enforcement scrutiny has interfered with Muslims Giving Back and Asad’s mission of promoting and providing charity to needy New Yorkers in accordance with one of Islam’s primary tenets.

Read more about our clients here.

This discriminatory profiling and the harms it has caused our clients violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and guarantee of government neutrality toward religion. Our suit asks the court to end the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program and to prevent future surveillance based solely or predominantly on religion in the absence of individualized suspicion of criminal activity. It also seeks to expunge the records of all of our clients created because of the program, and to appoint a monitor to ensure that New York City truly ends all of the unconstitutional practices inherent in its religious surveillance efforts. We hope the court recognizes that suspicionless and discriminatory surveillance based on nothing more than religious identity has no place in New York, or anywhere else.

Source

Submitted by http://dashielsheen.tumblr.com/

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
June 15, 2013

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG) and other Internet companies under court order.

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.

Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (0112917D), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the government or are in companies that have these accords.

Read more

“Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence.”

This begs the question why corporations should get clearance to access to “classified” intelligence… 

Submitted by http://dashielsheen.tumblr.com/

“I’m a Verizon customer. It doesn’t bother me one bit for the National Security Administration to have my phone number.” (x)

“…NSA provides Congress with a special immunity to its surveillance.”

(via Edward Snowden Q&A with Guardian readers)

The People’s Record coming to Portland the 20th, leaving the 23rd!

Need recommendations for groups, activists, community leaders etc who would make good interviews that we can reach out to ASAP.

Also need housing offer. We may or may not having something worked out…waiting to hear back. If not, then we have a pretty narrow period of time to find housing for the nights of the 20th, 21st and 22nd. If you can house us for any/all nights, please don’t hesitate to reach out. There are two of us, friendly, easy-going, not-too-weird! Pets are fine, 420 friendly, etc. Really, we’re not fussy at all. The closer to transit the better.

Also looking for recommendations for Seattle interviews!

Email: thepeoplesrec@gmail.com

UPDATE:

Thanks for the recommendations so far. Looks like we have housing for the 21^st. We need housing for the day we come in, the 20^th. Please reblog if you don’t mind, especially if you live around the Portland area or have a lot of friends who do. Feel free to ask around on our behalf.

(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via r3l4t10n5h1p5-r-4-chump5)

By Suzy K

(Source: abusersoftheleft, via anarcho-queer)

Breaking: Hung jury in case of Detroit police officer accused in 7-year-old Aiyana Jones shooting - The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case of Detroit Police officer Joseph Weekley who was accused in the death of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones.

Earlier Tuesday, the jury told the court they were having trouble reaching a verdict in the case and the judge ordered them to continue deliberations.

Hours later the court announced that there was a hung jury.

Weekley was charged with Involuntary Manslaughter in the death of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones during a raid on her family’s home on May 16, 2010. Aiyana was shot during the raid, which was caught on tape by crews filming for the reality show “The First 48.”

Aiyana’s family has endured continued harassment from the Detroit PD, including when police in riot gear invaded the family’s new home after her death. 

Family members said they were struck, shoved and called racist and sexist names as police officers, some in plainclothes, forced their way into the home on Detroit’s far east side.

Five children were there at the time, including a one-month old baby, a two-year-old toddler, and a five-year old.

“I was just sitting here watching my grandson,” Mertilla Jones, Aiyana’s paternal grandmother said. “Four cop cars pulled up and then they were coming from all over. They tried to grab Bobbie (Aiyana’s cousin), but he came in the house and me and Lakiya and R. J. [Rafael Jones] went out on the porch. The Black cop hit me in the mouth with a flashlight, and pushed and shoved me.”