The Angry Hippie's Soapbox Express

Some of the amazing art we saw at the #BAC in #ManitouSprings by the talented #DareeceWalker
#ModernArt #Art
(from @RobEBowen on Streamzoo)

Some random behind the scenes shots from #WhatsabudgetFilms shoot this afternoon. Weather was a D.
#indiefilm
(from @RobEBowen on Streamzoo)

kateoplis:

A Letter From Istanbul 

“The protest started 5 days ago. People were gathered to protest against the only park in Istanbul being turned into a shopping mall. Gezi park is the equivalent of Hyde Park or Central park. It started as a calm protest, many people reading and young students exchanging ideas.

Things really escalated when the police burnt down their tents and started to tear gas the non violent protesters. Tanks currently patrol the streets and gas bombs are being dropped by helicopter.

The Turkish ruling party has recently really started to show its fierce authoritarian side. last week alcohol laws were put in place and they are also planning on banning ‘public displays of affection’ aka kissing in the street!

There are other things too. 

The big thing is that the Turkish media is NOT broadcasting the protests. 40,000 people walked over the bridge to protest on the weekend. Nothing is on the TV or in the newspapers. Turkish people in towns and villages have no idea what is happening. This media censorship is a huge part of the problem.

Many are injured, and Istanbul is becoming a police state. It is not just the park that has caused this reaction, it is because our basic civil liberties are being taken away from us by a man who was not voted into power democratically.

It is rumoured that Facebook and Twitter will soon be shut down in Turkey. We want people to know what is happening. Many countries in the Middle East look at Turkey as an example of how a country can be run, but young people, writers, artists and musicians are beaten by the police, looked up in jail and tortured. these figures can be seen on Amnesty International’s website.”

- Selvi May

More here.

(via readinglist32)

soilwitch:

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN ISTANBUL 
from: http://defnesumanblogs.com/

To my friends who live outside of Turkey:

I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support.

Four days ago a group of people who did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and students.  Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees.  Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation.

They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines.

No newspaper, no television channel was there to report the protest. It was a complete media black out.

But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray.  They chased the crowds out of the park.

In the evening the number of protesters multiplied. So did the number of police forces around the park. Meanwhile local government of Istanbul shut down all the ways leading up to Taksim square where the Gezi Park is located. The metro was shut down, ferries were cancelled, roads were blocked.

Yet more and more people made their way up to the center of the city by walking.

They came from all around Istanbul. They came from all different backgrounds, different ideologies, different religions. They all gathered to prevent the demolition of something bigger than the park:

The right to live as honorable citizens of this country.

They gathered and marched. Police chased them with pepper spray and tear gas and drove their tanks over people who offered the police food in return. Two young people were run over by the tanks and were killed. Another young woman, a friend of mine, was hit in the head by one of the incoming tear gas canisters. The police were shooting them straight into the crowd.  After a three hour operation she is still in Intensive Care Unit and in  very critical condition. As I write this we don’t know if she is going to make it. This blog is dedicated to her.

These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its people’s will.

On top of all that, the government control over its people’s personal lives has become unbearable as of late. The state, under its conservative agenda passed many laws and regulations concerning abortion, cesarean birth, sale and use of alcohol and even the color of lipstick worn by the airline stewardesses.

People who are marching to the center of Istanbul are demanding their right to live freely and receive justice, protection and respect from the State. They demand to be involved in the decision-making processes about the city they live in.

What they have received instead is excessive force and enormous amounts of tear gas shot straight into their faces. Three people lost their eyes.

Yet they still march. Hundred of thousands join them. Couple of more thousand passed the Bosporus Bridge on foot to support the people of Taksim.

No newspaper or TV channel was there to report the events. They were busy with broadcasting news about Miss Turkey and “the strangest cat of the world”.

Police kept chasing people and spraying them with pepper spray to an extent that stray dogs and cats were poisoned and died by it.

Schools, hospitals and even 5 star hotels around Taksim Square opened their doors to the injured. Doctors filled the classrooms and hotel rooms to provide first aid. Some police officers refused to spray innocent people with tear gas and quit their jobs. Around the square they placed jammers to prevent internet connection and 3g networks were blocked. Residents and businesses in the area provided free wireless network for the people on the streets. Restaurants offered food and water for free.

People in Ankara and İzmir gathered on the streets to support the resistance in Istanbul.

Mainstream media kept showing Miss Turkey and “the strangest cat of the world”.

***

I am writing this letter so that you know what is going on in Istanbul. Mass media will not tell you any of this. Not in my country at least. Please post as many as articles as you see on the Internet and spread the word.

As I was posting articles that explained what is happening in Istanbul on my Facebook page last night someone asked me the following question:

«What are you hoping to gain by complaining about our country to foreigners?»

This blog is my answer to her.

By so called «complaining» about my country I am hoping to gain:

Freedom of expression and speech,

Respect for human rights,

Control over the decisions I make concerning my on my body,

The right to legally congregate in any part of the city without being considered a terrorist.

But most of all by spreading the word to you, my friends who live in other parts of the world, I am hoping to get your awareness, support and help!

Please spread the word and share this blog.

Thank you!

For futher info and things you can do for help please see Amnesty International’s Call for Urgent Help

(via cognitivedissonance)

neil-gaiman:

In case you missed it…

(via cable-knitted)

I’m happier than I look, I swear. After a week of flu I fought back by hiking up Red Mountain!
#ManitouSprings #Hiking
(from @RobEBowen on Streamzoo)

Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'

the-lone-pamphleteer:

by Jacob Chamberlain for commondreams.org

                      

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, ordering Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, 75, to pay Monsanto more than $84,000 for patent infringement for using second generation Monsanto seeds purchased second hand—a ruling which will have broad implications for the ownership of ‘life’ and farmers’ rights in the future.

In the case, Bowman had purchased soybean seeds from a grain elevator—where seeds are cheaper than freshly engineered Monsanto GE (genetically engineered) seeds and typically used for animal feed rather than for crops. The sources of the seeds Bowman purchased were mixed and were not labeled. However, some were “Roundup Ready” patented Monsanto seeds.

The Supreme Court Justices, who gave Monsanto a warm reception from the start, ruled that Bowman had broken the law because he planted seeds which naturally yielded from the original patented seed products—Monsanto’s policies prohibit farmers from saving or reusing seeds from Monsanto born crops.

Farmers who use Monsanto’s seeds are forced to buy the high priced new seeds every year.

Ahead of the expected ruling, Debbie Barker, Program Director for Save Our Seeds (SOS), and George Kimbrell, staff attorney for Center for Food Safety (CFS), asked in an op-ed earlier this year, “Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?”:

Bowman vs. Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court’s interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?

[Monsanto’s] logic is troubling to many who point out that it is the nature of seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate. Monsanto’s claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural product should raise concern. Seeds, unlike computer chips, for example, are essential to life. If people are denied a computer chip, they don’t go hungry. If people are denied seeds, the potential consequences are much more threatening.

Bowman had argued that he was respecting his contract with Monsanto, purchasing directly from them each year, but couldn’t afford Monsanto’s high prices for his riskier late season crops. Bowman’s defense argued that Monsanto’s patent was “exhausted” through the process of natural seed reproduction and no longer applied to Bowman’s second generation seeds.

“If they don’t want me to go to the elevator and buy that grain,” Bowman had stated, “then Congress should pass a law saying you can’t do it.”

The Center for Food Safety released a report in February which shows three corporations control more than half of the global commercial seed market.

As a result, from 1995-2011 the average cost to plant 1 acre of soybeans rose 325%.

As AP reports, more than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.

Vandana Shiva, an expert on seed patents and their effects on farmers around the world, wrote recently:

Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers’ suicides in India to Monsanto vs Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.

[See other Lone Pamphleteer posts about Monsanto and watch a trailer for the documentary David vs. Monsanto.]

Perhaps when their toxic shit-stain of a product line and bullying, business ending patent chasing finally kills us all and renders every farmer not buying their crap homeless and unemployed, the politicians will stop giving them handjobs and handouts…..but I’m not holding my breath.

(via bohemianarthouse)

“You Can’t Be a Princess” | Journalists from ABC’s “What Would You Do?” planted hidden cameras in a Halloween store and filmed shoppers’ reactions to a boy who wanted a princess costume and a girl who wanted a Spiderman costume.

sometimes people make it really hard to want to go out and interact with the public…

Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal' | Common Dreams

socialismartnature:

In an interview with the Guardian published on Sunday, renowned professor and prolific critic of the “military-industrial-complex” and rampant “plutocracy” in the U.S. and around the world, Dr. Cornel West explained his views on the state of America today and his fall from grace, by design, with President Barack Obama: “He’s just too tied to Wall Street. And at this point he is a war criminal.”

“They say I’m un-American,” West told interviewer Hugh Muir, referring to Obama’s team.

But from someone who actively campaigned for the man, only to be quickly and vastly disappointed, West sees in Obama the epitome of Washington corruption:

“He talked about Martin Luther King over and over again as he ran,” West said of their campaign stops together, adding later, “You can’t just invoke Martin Luther King like that and not follow through on his priorities in some way.”

“King died fighting not just against poverty but against carpet-bombing in Vietnam; the war crimes under Nixon and Kissinger.”

West goes on:

You can’t meet every Tuesday with a killer list and continually have drones drop bombs. You can do that once or twice and say: ‘I shouldn’t have done that, I’ve got to stop.’ But when you do it month in, month out, year in, year out – that’s a pattern of behavior.” […]

I think there is a chance of a snowball in hell that he will ever be tried, but I think he should be tried and I said the same about George Bush. These are war crimes. We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people.” […]

“I knew he would have rightwing opposition, but he hasn’t tried,” West said of Obama’s unwillingness to curb Wall Street’s hold on Washington. “When he came in, he brought in Wall Street-friendly people – Tim Geithner, Larry Summers – and made it clear he had no intention of bailing out homeowners, supporting trade unions.”

And later:

And he hasn’t said a mumbling word about the institutions that have destroyed two generations of young black and brown youth, the new Jim Crow, the prison industrial complex. It’s not about race. It is about commitment to justice. He should be able to say that in the last few years, with the shift from 300,000 inmates to 2.5 million today, there have been unjust polices and I intend to do all I can. Maybe he couldn’t do that much. But at least tell the truth. I would rather have a white president fundamentally dedicated to eradicating poverty and enhancing the plight of working people than a black president tied to Wall Street and drones.”

AP responds to intrusive seizure of journalists’ phone records by Obama administration | Associated Press

socialismartnature:

Maybe Hosni Mubarak’s secret police fled Egpyt and have taken refuge in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Freedom of the press, my ass!

===

The U.S. Department of Justice notified The Associated Press on Friday, May 10, that it had secretly obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP journalists and offices, including cell and home phone lines.

AP is asking the DOJ for an immediate explanation of the extraordinary action and for the records to be returned to AP and all copies destroyed.  

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt protested the massive intrusion into AP’s newsgathering activities in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, May 13. 

In the letter Pruitt states:

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”