Vice President Kamala Harris Shares Stories of Her Mother on the Howard Stern Show

Vice President Kamala Harris shares stories of her mother. 

Rally in Greensboro, North Carolina with Vice President Kamala Harris

WWII Era Anti-Fascism Film from US - "Don't Be A Sucker"

"The world is a dangerous place...not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it"
-Albert Einstein

In the light of the horrific, fascist, white-supremacist violence against peaceful folks in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, I find this film produced by the US War Department during WWII to be instructive. Clips from the film are appearing on social media sites. The full film is presented here.

From IMDB:

"Financed and produced by the United States War Department in 1943, and shot at the Warners studio, although it was distributed through all of the major studios' film exchanges and also by National Screen Services free to the theatre exhibitors: A young, healthy American Free Mason is taken in by the message of a soap-box orator who asserts that all good jobs in the United States are being taken by the so-called minorities, domestic and foreign. He falls into a conversation with a refugee professor who tells him of the pattern of events that brought Hitler to power in Germany and how Germany's anti-democratic groups split the country into helpless minorities, each hating the other. The professor concludes by pointing out that America is composed of many minorities, but all are united as Americans."

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You Can't Blow Out a Fire: The Life and Death of Steve Biko

Peter Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour Perform Gabriel's Song Biko at Friends United Against Malaria - Genève, Switzerland on 08/10/2005.

Today, September 12, 2011, on the anniversary of Steve Biko's death at the hands of the South African security police, I reflect on the impact Mr. Biko had on South Africa and the world. I stand with Artists for a New South Africa and proclaim, "Biko lives on!"

On September 12,1977 Steve Biko died in in police custody in South Africa.
The leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, Steve Biko, was 30 years old.

Mr Biko had been in custody since August 18, 1977. He was the 20th person to die in custody during an 18 month stretch in 1976-1977. Steve Biko left a wife and two children.

Steve Biko's Biography

Steve Biko was born in South Africa in 1946.

He became active in the anti-apartheid movement in 1960s when he was studying medicine at the University of Natal.

Steve Biko organized the South African Students'Organistion in 1968 and was elected its first president the following year.

Expelled from his medical studies, Biko began working full-time for the Black Community Programmes organization. Biko also started writing under the pen-name Frank Talk for the South African Students'Organistion newsletter.

By 1973 his work had come to the attention of the repressive South African government. In an attempt to curtail his activism, Biko was placed under a form of house arrest restricting him to his birthplace - King William's Town .

Even under these restraints and the pressure from the South African government, Biko continued his work with the Black Community Programmes.

Steve Biko also helped create the Zimele Trust Fund in 1975, which helped political prisoners and their families, and the Ginsberg Educational Trust, to assist black students.

Steve Biko was arrested by the apartheid government on August 18, 1977. He died in police custody on September 12, 1977.

Steve Biko's memory lives on as a beacon to all those who fearlessly face down injustice across the globe. Steve Biko will never be forgotten.



Biko, written by Peter Gabriel, This version is from the 1994 Manu Dibango Album WAKAFRIKA: featuring Alex Brown, Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Geoffrey Oryema and Sinead O'Connor

Biko
by Peter Gabriel

September '77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

When I try and sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

Dedicated to the People of Tripoli: Sam Brookes - A Roof on my Head

Roman Ruins at Leptis Magna, Libya
Photo: ALAMY



As the fighting continues to rage in Libya, the gaze of the West seems to have turned to Abbottabad. The dedication of artists like Sam Brookes turns our heads back to this story of pain, heroism and ultimately triumph.

More at:
The Music of Sam Brookes.

A Call for China to Free Unjustly Imprisoned Artist Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei with musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou in the elevator when taken in custody by the police, Sichuan, China, August 2009
100 cm x 130 cm color photograph
Courtesy Ai Weiwei and Christine König Galerie, Vienna

“We can perhaps bet on art to win over tyrants. It is the world’s artists, particularly those courageous enough to stand up against authoritarianism, for whom we need to be concerned, and for whose safety we must fight.”
- Salman Rushdie

On April 3, 2011, the internationally recognized Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by Chinese officials at the Beijing airport while en route to Hong Kong, and his papers and computers were seized from his studio compound.

The international arts community has rallied around Ai Weiwei's unjust incarceration and an online petition is being sponsored by museum directors and cultural figures across the globe: 'By using Ai Weiwei’s favored medium of “social sculpture,” we hope to hasten the release of our visionary friend."

Please take a moment and sign the petition here:
Call for the Release of Ai WeiWei

Your signature will join the growing list sampled below:

Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation
and Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art
Juan Ignacio Vidarte, Director General, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,
and Deputy Director and Chief Officer for Global Strategies, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Glenn Lowry, Director, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chris Dercon, Director, Tate Modern
Kaywin Feldman, President, Association of Art Museum Directors and Director
and President, Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Yongwoo Lee, President, The Gwangju Biennale Foundation
Michael Govan, Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Vishakha Desai, President and Melissa Chiu, Vice President of Global Arts, Asia Society
Jim Cuno, President and Director, Art Institute of Chicago
Julián Zugazagoitia, Director, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City
Ann Philbin, Director, Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
Olga Viso, Director, Walker Art Center
Alfred Pacquement, Director, Musée national d'art moderne/Centre de création industrielle, Paris
Arnold Lehman, Director, Brooklyn Museum
Jill Medvedow, Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Julia Peyton-Jones, Director and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes
and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, London
Poul Erik Tøjner, Director, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
Nathalie Bondil, Director and Chief Curator, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Neal Benezra, Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Tony Ellwood, Director, and Suhanya Raffel, Deputy Director, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia
Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard Art Museums
Ann Goldstein, Director, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Apinan Poshynanda, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Artistic Director, dOCUMENTA (13) and Bernd Leifeld, CEO, documenta
Manray Hsu, Founding Director, Taipei Contemporary Art Center
Holly Hotchner, Nanette L. Laitman Director, Museum of Arts and Design, New York
Joel Wachs, President, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Pittsburgh

More at:

Op/Ed piece Dangerous Arts by Salman Rushdie in the New York Times.

Ai Weiwei's Blog

Free Ai Weiwei

A Persian Vigil

Gregg Chadwick
A Persian Vigil (for Marjane Satrapi)
24"x48" oil on linen 2009

Tomorrow is the 4th of July in the United States. As I think in red, white and blue, more than a hint of green enters my thoughts. Today in the New York Times, Marjene Satrapi writes longingly and powerfully about her true home in Iran:

It’s likely needless to remind you that this was not the first time Iranians showed how much they love freedom. Look only at the 20th century: They launched the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (the first in Asia); nationalized the oil industry in 1951 (the first Middle Eastern country to do so); mounted the revolution of 1979; and engineered the student revolt of 1999. Which brings us to now, and that deafening cry for democracy.

Almost 20 years ago, when I started studying art in Tehran, the very idea of “politics” was so frightening that we didn’t even dare think about it. To talk about it? Beyond belief!

To demonstrate in the streets against the president? Surreal!

Criticize the supreme leader? Apocalyptic!

Shouting “Down with Khamenei”? Death!

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were.

They hold hands and scream: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are together!”

They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.

They understand that unlike the generation before them — my generation, for whom the dream was to leave Iran — the real dream is not to leave Iran but to fight for it, to free it, to love it and to reconstruct it.

-Marjane Satrapi:

Much more at:
I Must Go Home to Iran Again

Revolution '09 موج سبز

Revolution '09 موج سبز, originally uploaded by greggchadwick.

Gregg Chadwick
Revolution '09 موج سبز
48"x36" oil on linen 2009
(in progress - the revolution and the painting)

An Iranian citizen writes from Tehran:
(from Andrew Sullivan)

"I remember September 11, 2001. I remember watching TV all day worried and sad. I remember holding candlelight vigils with my friends for the victims. Then George W. Bush went on to declare us as one of the “Axis of Evil.” I remember asking myself, “Why?” Not a single one of the terrorists was Iranian, and I wondered why he didn’t bother to make a distinction between the government and the people. In fact, in all of the Middle East I don’t think there is a more pro-American nation than Iran, but no one made such a distinction. Consequently, the Iranian people were viewed with an aura of suspicion in every airport and embassy around the world for the rest of the Bush administration."

"But all of that unfounded negative stereotyping came to an end when, in the aftermath of the elections, the nation stood up to the manipulative authorities and separated its account from that of the government. We shattered the stereotype with the amateur photos and videos taken with our own mobile phones. We captured the true picture of the Iranian nation and relayed it to the world, a picture of a young and highly educated nation yearning to be free."

--PA

Much more at:
Andrew Sullivan at theAtlantic

New Video from today in Iran - Sunday, June 21, 2009

New Video from today in Iran - Sunday, June 21, 2009