You are currently browsing posts tagged with Olympia
Posted on Saturday, 31 July, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
“When the United States is on the side of injustice, it harms our country, it harms our integrity, it harms our principle, it harms our standing in the world. People want to believe that we, as the world’s leading superpower, live up to our highest virtues. And when we fail to do that, it threatens, and endangers, and undermines us.”
— Rep. Brian Baird, speaking at the 9th Annual National Organizers’ Conference for the US Campaign to End the Occupation
Hey Brian,
I hear you’re stepping down from Congress soon. Sorry to hear about it, really. It seems like you’ve finally arrived to a place where I could vote for you again, and now the whole process has to start over and I have to listen to a new representative get it wrong for years upon years. Perhaps you’ve decided that your awakening has come with the unfortunate side effect of being unable to win another election while also saying what you believe. That may be true, but so what?
I think that’s the best time to run for re-election. As much as possible, we need it on the public record how many people actually vote and campaign against rationality. Elections are when these people out and say things which can be recorded. We need that. When need to know which fellow Democrats, Republicans and other parties will or won’t do so, because more importantly than serving democracy for yet another election cycle, we can measure public reaction and see exactly where your part of the United States stands.
So, put it to the test and run again. You’ve got nothing to lose.
Posted on Sunday, 2 May, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
ORSMP is expected to be the largest Palestine solidarity mural in the world. It is located on the north side of the Labor Temple building in downtown Olympia. To date, this olive tree, with branches spanning 100 feet, has been completed and is waiting for its leaves to unfold.
Finally, the side of the Brotherhood tavern in Olympia, WA, is something worth looking at:
The Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural is a community building memorial honoring all who have lost their lives in struggle and all who are resisting oppression. I’m looking forward to checking it out this July when we visit folks back home. The project was just getting under way when we there the year before last.
The mural was inspired by the killing of Rachel Corrie, a resident of Olympia who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while defending the home of a Palestinian pharmacist and his family. The mural tells a tale of two cities linked through tragedy, Olympia WA and Rafah, Palestine. It is the tale of people working together for a better world. The mural uses technology and advancements in printing processes to include artists from Palestine who are forbidden to travel.
Event Marks the Completion of the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural: 6 p.m. Saturday, May 8, Labor Temple, Olympia WA
- 4,000 square foot Multi-Media project
- Collective effort of 150 Olympia locals, national and international groups and individuals
- Uses technology to include artists from Palestine – a break in the siege on Gaza
— Olympia-Rafah Mural Project
Posted on Wednesday, 29 July, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
Democracy Now! has the exclusive skinny on military spooks infiltrating groups in my occasional stomping grounds of Olympia, WA: My pal Drew Hendricks, along with Brendan Maslauskas Dunn (of Students for a Democratic Society and the Port of Oly anti-militarization group) pieced together documents from FOIA requests to out “John Jacob” who was passing himeself off as an anti-war activist. He was really John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at the nearby Fort Lewis military base.
Newly declassified documents reveal that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance in Washington state was actually an informant for the US military. The man everyone knew as “John Jacob” was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. The military’s role in the spying raises questions about possibly illegal activity. The Posse Comitatus law bars the use of the armed forces for law enforcement inside the United States. The Fort Lewis military base denied our request for an interview. But in a statement to Democracy Now, the base’s Public Affairs office publicly acknowledged for the first time that Towery is a military operative. “This could be one of the key revelations of this era,” said Eileen Clancy, who has closely tracked government spying on activist organizations. [includes rush transcript]
— Democracy Now!
Posted on Tuesday, 14 April, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
PALESTINIAN ARTISTS DAM TO PLAY BENEFIT SHOW FOR OLYMPIA-RAFAH SOLIDARITY MURAL PROJECT
If I were in Olympia, I’d be buying tickets to this yesterday.
OLYMPIA, WA — DAM, a leading Palestinian hip hop group and local artists Xperience and DJ Sweetelite, will play the Capitol Theater, 206 5th Avenue SE, in Olympia, April 21st at 7:00pm. Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Advance tickets can be purchased at Rainy Day Records or online through Buyolympia. Proceeds will benefit the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project.
DAM is the first and leading Palestinian hip hop group. It is composed of Tamer Nafar, 27, his younger brother Suhell, 23, and Mahmoud Jreri, 24. All three members of the group were born and grew up in the slums of Lod, a mixed town of Arabs and Jews, twenty kilometers from Jerusalem.
DAM’s music is a unique fusion of East and West, combining Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies and urban hip hop.
The lyrics of DAM are influenced by the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as by the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality. DAM also draw their influence from such controversial issues as terrorism, drugs and women’s rights.
DAM was featured in the film Slingshot Hip Hop, released in 2008, which braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover hip hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty.
This show is a benefit for the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project. Building bridges, the mural project is a recognition of the relationships that exist between the people of Olympia, Washington, the people of Rafah, Palestine and with all who struggle and work for justice. Through cultural expression, the mural will provide visibility to strengthen the movement for social change in Palestine, the U.S. and the world. It is a project of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project and is co-sponsored by the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project and Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Visit www.olympiarafahmural.org for more information.
Join us for the after party at the Royal Lounge, 311 Capitol Way N. A percentage of the proceeds will support the creation the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural. 21 and over.
For more information contact Serena Becker at 360-754-3988 or serena@rachelcorriefoundation.org.
Posted on Saturday, 8 November, 2008 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
The Top 5 list for things our gleaming new president
can do to prove to the world we aren’t imperial wankers
Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Barack Obama is “the goodest person we’ve ever had as a presidential candidate,” deemed Sarah Silverman. He is “our last hope of ending this country’s reputation as the asshole of the universe.”
And the U.S. populace is now in a drunken dance frenzy to a club remix of The Witch is Dead. That’s a good thing. Soak it up. Enjoy the moment. There’s a currently a collective sigh of relief heard around the world, even in places where people don’t expect large degrees of change. The achievement of an African American should be lauded.
I want the cynics among us to pause at least long enough to appreciate the historical significance of the incoming 44th president’s victory. I want the blind party-line enthusiasts to fess up how similar the candidates were to one another on most issues. And lastly, I want my independent-voting pals out there to honestly admit that while the differences were few, they translate into some clear divisions. And everyone should admit that they voted mostly because they were freaked out.
In 2004 I was hoping to watch the election from south of the border. A flash flood in California killed my car and cost me a bunch of money and put that dream to an end. I ended up cruising around the various election night parties of Olympia, WA, mooching free grub and brew as I went and watching people grow more and more drunk and depressed as Bush won another round. What a difference four years makes. I got to watch this election from abroad, living and working in the UK. Married, home-owning, kid having and wandering around with enough loose change to buy my own brews. And mostly I slept through the results.
Get some more of this post
Posted on Friday, 16 November, 2007 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
This event reminds me of the excellent Suheir Hammad poem In America. I now turn this blog post over to the Rachel Corrie Foundation:
Where: The Olympia Community Center (222 Columbia St NW, Olympia, WA) Multipurpose Room B
When: November 29, 2007, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
Time: 7 p.m.
Please join the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice for a film presentation and discussion looking at the expulsion of Palestinians from their land and how it relates to the local history of Native Americans. Gary Peterson, faculty at the Evergreen State College, will speak about the “hidden histories” of the indigenous inhabitants of the area, and a film will be shown about the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe”), in which over 60% of Palestinians were expelled from their land in 1948.
Get some more of this post
« Older Entries
The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they’d like to put us to work rebuilding it, and — to add insult to injury — at a profit.
