New Clear Vision

Should Photographers Depict Reality, Or Try to Change It?

by David Bacon

Can photographers be participants in the social events they document?  Eighty years ago the question would have seemed irrelevant in the political upsurges of the 1930s, in both Mexico and the United States.  Many photographers were political activists, and saw their work intimately connected to workers strikes, political revolution or the movements for indigenous rights.

Today what was an obvious link is often viewed as a dangerous conflict of interest.  Politics compromise art.  Photographers must be objective and neutral, or at least stand at a distance from the reality they record on film or the compact flash card.

Now a book and a recent exhibition have provided both images and the narrative experiences of photographers that should reopen this debate.  This Light of Ours, Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, was published recently by the University Press of Mississippi, and the exhibition, Photography in Mexico, ran at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last year. (more…)

Why Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz Must Be Released From Solitary Confinement

by Angola 3 News

This month, a 30-day action campaign was launched demanding the release of Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz from solitary confinement, where he has been held for over 23 consecutive years, and 28 of the last 30 years, in Pennsylvania prisons. On April 8, when the campaign began, Maroon’s legal team sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC), demanding his release from solitary confinement and promising litigation against the PA DOC if he is not transferred to general population by May 8.

The action campaign describes Maroon as “a former leader of the Black Panthers and the Black freedom movement, born in Philadelphia in 1943 and originally imprisoned in January 1972 for actions relating to his political involvement. With an extraordinary thirty-plus years spent in solitary confinement…Maroon’s case is one of the most shocking examples of U.S. torture of political prisoners, and one of the most egregious examples of human rights violations regarding prison conditions anywhere in the world. His ‘Maroon’ nickname is, in part, due to his continued resistance — which twice led him to escape confinement; it is also based on his continued clear analysis, including recent writings on ecology and matriarchy.” (more…)

There’s a Revolution and It’s Not Being Televised

by David Swanson

Hundreds gathered in Dallas to reject the Bush Lie Bury, and three went to jail.  I flew from Dallas to Syracuse, where hundreds protested Obama’s drone-murder program, and 32 went to jail and are still there (and will stay until trial unless bail can be raised) — some of them risk major jail time because they violated a protective order that the commander of a U.S. military base gained to protect himself from nonviolent peace activists.  Another drone protester in Missouri, Brian Terrell, is just finishing a six-month sentence.  Climate activist Tim DeChristopher just got out.  The people locked in Guantanamo are refusing to eat, and groups around the world are making plans to fast with them.  The people of Vieques, Puerto Rico, rallied on May 1st to demand that the U.S. military truly depart their island.  Big plans are being made to rally for Bradley Manning on June 1st.  This week I’m heading to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s meeting in North Carolina, after which — just over in Tennessee — three courageous activists go on trial, facing major time in prison, for having entered and protested a nuclear weapons facility.

The revolution will not be televised. (more…)

LGBTQ Struggles for Equality in Washington State

by Mariah Bell-Stuart, Todd Abrams, and Shalea Semana 

Seattle, Washington is a city of rich culture, activism, and nonprofit work. It is a city of entertainment and arts, and remains one of acceptance. Known for its overall ‘tolerance’, it has the second largest gay community in the U.S., next to San Francisco.

In the 1960s and 70s, Seattle experienced an influx of gay men moving from areas of hate crimes to a more open-minded environment. The greater Seattle Area historically has been accepting of LGBTQ people. One salient way Seattle caters to the community is through bars and other socializing venues that cater to LGBTQ singles and couples.

Seattle political leadership also recognizes the historical importance of the LGBTQ community and is attempting to preserve important sites of historic and contemporary significance for LGBTQ flourishing and wellbeing. These places include bars, stores, community organizations, health centers and other places that specifically cater to the LGBTQ community (Vandenorth 2012). By preserving these places it ensures that Seattle continues to be a leader in equality and protection for the LGBTQ community.

In many other parts of the country tolerance for the members of the LGBTQ community and their own institutions is lacking and in many places open direct hostility and discrimination remain not just evident but in many respects a growing menace. (more…)

Building a Peace Movement That Moves Toward Peace

by David Swanson

Why did the peace movement of the middle of the last decade not grow larger?  Why did it shrink away?  Why is it struggling now?

As has been documented, a huge factor in the shrinking away was partisan delusion.  You put a different political party’s name on the wars and they become good wars.

But that also means that what you had was a peace movement that believed in the possibility of good wars.  In fact, much of it believed that Iraq was a bad war and Afghanistan a good war.  Many people even went out of their way to display their “reasonableness” by declaring Afghanistan a good war without actually examining the war on Afghanistan; this was imagined to be a strategic way to prevent or scale back or end the war on Iraq. (more…)

Living Simply So That Others May Simply Live

by Delo Freitas

It is an interesting time to be looking for a home in America. Though known for capitalism and consumerism, McDonalds and McMansions, emerging counter movements seek to promote sustainable living through the most personal of methods, and the one most tied up with the American dream — the home. Especially in the face of 2008’s economic crisis, more and more Americans are embracing the “Tiny House Movement,” in which each square foot is utilized to its full potential. Living small is, in its own way, a form of subversion: It decommodifies the idea of “home,” promotes a DIY (Do It Yourself) ethic in one the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, and places control back into the hands of homeowners instead of finance capitalists, speculators and the global market. (more…)

People Power Helps Stop Youth Incarceration

by Victoria Law

While Illinois is closing two youth prisons as a cost-cutting measure, other states are not. Washington State’s King County recently passed a $210 million renovation and expansion of its youth jail. Undeterred, activists work to halt the jail. In Baltimore, organizing against a youth jail proves that popular disapproval can derail supposedly done deals.

With the number of youth behind bars at an all-time low — dropping 41 percent from 107,000 in 1995 to under 71,000 in 2010 — are more youth jails really necessary? Research has shown that community-based programs that keep youth connected to their families are more likely to succeed than jails or prisons. So when Dede Adhanom learned that King County was proposing to renovate and expand its current youth jail in Seattle’s Central District, she was outraged.

On April 5, 2012, King County Council members held a public meeting at Seattle University to introduce Proposition 1, a $210 million tax levy to renovate the dilapidated King County Youth Services Center to include a youth detention center with 154 dorms as well as ten family courtrooms. “It was at 1 PM. A lot of people can’t make 1 PM meetings unless they work at a job that pays them to be there,” Adhanom noted. Undeterred, she and several others attended. “We shouted them out of there. That they’re having the public meeting at 1 PM shows their intentions.” (more…)