Are You Going To Be In Phoenix This Wednesday, 9/21? | Manu Chao!!!!!

From The Alto AZ Campaign:

Join us in Phoenix, Arizona, for a historic "Festival de Resistencia."

On Wednesday, September 21st, Manu Chao will give a free benefit concert to celebrate the years of community resistance against anti-immigrant hate legislation in Arizona. The concert will also serve as a renewed national commitment to the Arizona Boycott - "La Huelga del Pueblo."

Resistance by the people of Arizona, led by the Comités de Defensa del Barrio (CDBs), has served to inspire and mobilize thousands of communities across the country. The CDBs are now looking to implement new boycott actions against the financial supporters of politicians and organizations who promote hate legislation. The power and determination of these resistance actions is demonstrated by the successful ballot initiative to recall State Senate President, Russell Pearce, set for November 8th. We're building our economic and political power and we plan to exercise it.

Manu Chao believes in the struggle for human dignity and has joined forces with the Comités de Defensa del Barrio and the AltoArizona campaign.

You can also be part of this resistance by helping us support community organizing in Arizona and by engaging in the ongoing efforts of the CDBs and other local groups.

Donate and Get Involved:

CAN YOU DONATE $10, $25, $50 OR MORE?

If you have already donated, Thank You. We have received over $1000 toward our goal and appreciate all that you've contributed.

If you haven't donated yet, please consider making one today to help cover the costs of production.

We make this request respectfully, knowing that these are challenging economic times. So we are reaching out to those who believe in our struggle, who stand for human rights and dignity, and who believe that love can conquer fear and bigotry. We call out to those who believe that no human being can ever be "illegal."

The Festival of Resistance is being organized as a family focused event and celebration for Civil Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and the Rights of Mother Earth. The event will be FREE of charge. There will be no drugs, alcohol or weapons allowed. It will be a peaceful celebration that will be remembered for a long time to come.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,

Pablo Alvarado
Director of NDLON

P.S.

Please RSVP on Facebook and share with your friends here: http://on.fb.me/manu-az-concert

A Very Funny (and true) Article from Grist.org

There's a study running soon in the journal Global Environmental Change called "Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States." It analyzes poll and survey data from the last 10 years and finds that ... are you sitting down? ... conservative white men are far more likely to deny the threat of climate change than other people.

OK, that's no surprise to anyone who's been awake over the last decade. But the paper goes beyond that to put forward some theories about why conservative white men (CWM) are so loathe to accept climate change. The explanation is some mix of the following, all of which overlap in various ways:

First there's the "white male effect" -- generally speaking, white males are less concerned with a variety of risks. This probably has to do with the fact that they are less exposed to risk than other demographics, what with running things and all.

Then, as Chris Mooney notes, there's the "social dominance orientation" of conservatives, who see social life as following the law of the jungle. One's choice is to dominate or be dominated; that is the natural order of things. Such folk are leery of climate change solutions premised on fairness or egalitarianism.

Then there are the well-understood "system-justifying tendencies" of conservatives. The authors explain that conservatives ...

... strongly display tendencies to justify and defend the current social and economic system. Conservatives dislike change and uncertainty and attempt to simplify complexity. Further, conservative white males have disproportionately occupied positions of power within our economic system. Given the expansive challenge that climate change poses to the industrial capitalist economic system, it should not be surprising that conservative white males' strong system-justifying attitudes would be triggered to deny climate change.
Finally, there's "identity-protective cognition," a notion borrowed from Dan Kahan at Yale. (See this PDF.) Here's how Kahan and colleagues sum it up:

We propose that variance in risk perceptions -- across persons generally, and across race and gender in particular -- reflects a form of motivated cognition through which people seek to deflect threats to identities they hold, and roles they occupy, by virtue of contested cultural norms.
"Motivated cognition" refers to reasoning done in service of justifying an already held belief or goal. It helps explain why the CWM who know the most about climate science are the most likely to reject it; they learn about it in order to reject it. See Chris Mooney's great piece on that. Point being: when facts (or the implications of those facts) threaten people's social identities, they tend to dismiss the facts rather than the identity.
To all these reasons, I'd add "epistemic closure," the extraordinary way that the modern right has constructed a self-contained, hermetically sealed media environment in which conservatives can be protected from ever encountering a contrary view. It's an accelerant to all the tendencies described above.

Anyway, as you can see, the rejection of climate science among CWM is basically overdetermined. Climate change threatens their values, their privileges, and their worldview. They are reacting as one would expect them to react.

The Spirit of Cesar Chavez Will Never Die!

More ways to promote peace, justice, and holistic sustainability with presente.org:

A couple of months ago thousands of us stood with the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) to ask Governor Jerry Brown to pass the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act. But Gov. Brown didn't listen to us. Instead, he vetoed the act.

So what is the UFW doing now to make sure Gov. Brown listens? Walking—the same thing Cesar Chávez did many times when he gained the support of the nation. The UFW is currently on a 13-day, 200 mile march to Sacramento, CA. If you can't join them on the actual march1, the UFW is asking you to join them in a virtual march for the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, and a bill that would give farm workers the right to overtime after and 8-hour workday.2

http://act.presente.org/sign/ufw_march

Farm labor is consistently listed as one of ten most dangerous jobs in the U.S.3 Last time we wrote you about the Fair Treatment For Farm Workers Act we told you the story of 17 year-old María Isabel. After picking grapes in the hot California sun for nine hours, she was rushed to the hospital in a coma and a body temperature of 108 degrees. The nearest water cooler was a 10-minute walk away, but workers say the strict foreman didn't allow them a long enough break to stop and get a drink. She died two days later.4 



That's why farm workers like Maria Escutia, who has been picking grapes for 10 years, have decided to march the full 13 days. When asked why she said: "I am doing this because I am very upset. I believe we work in dangerous conditions, in the heat, in the cold and I believe we deserve to be treated better without being intimidated at work; we deserve the right to have benefits. We deserve this and more." Will you stand with farm workers like Maria Escutia during their march and sign this petition?

http://act.presente.org/sign/ufw_march

Gov. Brown stood with Cesar Chávez when he was governor, before, can you help give him the courage to stand with his spirit again?

http://act.presente.org/sign/ufw_march

Thanks y ¡Adelante!
Laurie, Felipe, Kyle, Favianna, Roberto, Carlos and the rest of the Presente.org team

1. Capitol Rally - Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Now, United Farm Workers, 9/6/2011
http://action.ufw.org/page/event/detail/onedayevent/wrl8

2. Farm workers are marching to Sacramento. Join Them Virtually, United Farm Workers,
http://action.ufw.org/page/s/200milemarch

3. Think Again: Is Farm Work Funny, Mr. Colbert, Center for American Progress, 09/30/2010
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/09/ta093010.html

4. Teen Farmworker's Heat Death Sparks Outcry, National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91240378

Get Educated About Unjust Deportations!

Dear Activist,

More than 20,000 Presente.org members have called on President Obama to end the dangerous Secure Communities (S-COMM) program, after his Administration’s decision to aggressively expand the use of local police officers as immigration agents.

Already, we’re helping make an impact together. The New York Times just ran an editorial saying that S-Comm, “has been plagued since its inception by miscommunication, deception, opacity and suspicion …a program whose plug desperately needs pulling.”1 The Los Angeles Times editorial board similarly told Obama to “Shelve Secure Communities.” 2

In Boston, the city where S-Comm got it’s start, Mayor Tom Menino now wants the program out, stating, “People will start to say the police are gestapos. My police aren’t gestapos.”3 Many more community organizations led by the National Day Labor Organizing Network are set to protest S-Comm at ICE forums around the country.4 The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is leading a national call-in day to the White House against S-Comm. 5 This is exactly the kind of massive outcry needed to tell the Obama administration that 1 million deportations is enough! ¡Ya basta!

http://act.presente.org/sign/scomm/


— from Favianna, Felipe, Carlos, Roberto, Laurie and everyone else from the Presente.org team.

Here's more background information:


1. “The Widening Dragnet," New York Times, 08/14/2011
http://nyti.ms/nkrm1d

2. “Shelve Secure Communities,” Los Angeles Times, 08/12/2011
http://lat.ms/qyFMYc

3. “Resistance Widens To Obama Initiative on Criminal Immigrants,” New York Times, 08/13/2011
http://nyti.ms/nSRaZh

4. NDLON/Turning the Tide event page, http://bit.ly/pM6D3r

5. NNIRR Action Alert, http://bit.ly/oW6AWN

New York Makes a Mark for Peace, Justice, and Sustainability!

Great job New York! You're now the sixth conscious state to allow same sex couples to marry!

Who's next?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/25/new.york.gay.marriage.lawsuit/

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57749.html

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-06-24/news/29724140_1_gay-marriage-gay-couples-james-alesi

Support All Peoples Right to Celebrate their Partners!

Read up, if you haven't already, about what's happening in NY to push forward an agenda of justice for same sex marriage. No one should ever be denied the right to celebrate love with their partner regardless of arbitrary rules, policy, law, legislation, and conservative ideology.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/01/new.york.same.sex.marriage/

http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/07/01/ny-town-clerk-i-wont-sign-gay-wedding-license

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/01/barack-obama-gay-marriage

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-gaymarriage-newyork-idUSTRE75N0JS20110624

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html

The Film, The Last Mountain, Premiers in L.A. Today!

From www.grist.org

In the heart of Appalachia, a battle rages over the fate of the last great mountain: A mining giant wants to obliterate Coal River Mountain for the coal that lies inside. Meanwhile local families fight to defend their community, their heritage, and their futures.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental and public health concerns, so the daring solution proposed by this small Appalachian community quickly takes on national significance. And when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. joins Appalachian families and activists, harnessing the power of citizen democracy to fend off the extraordinary and insidious power of Big Coal, the conflict flares.

The film The Last Mountain follows waitresses, college students and former marines taking extraordinary risks to stave off the Coal Industries lobbyists and politicians, sparking a revolutionary fight to save Appalachia — and our collective future.

Watch the film's trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WpxjwxGns