My public comment on the Keystone Pipeline

We know climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, namely the burning of fossil fuels.  President Obama has promised us oil independence - let us take steps in that direction by NOT building this pipeline, and instead, investing in energy sources that will sustain us in the future, not cripple us and our children's children.

The United States should take a leadership role in the world by denying industry- and greed-based proposals such as this one and move forward with this country's history of innovation.  This pipeline will only deny the inevitable as there is still only a finite amount of oil shale, tar sands, and crude oil to be refined.

Building this pipeline will negatively impact me by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, by continuing to destroy and develop Native American lands, and by failing to respond to the sentiments of U.S. citizens, who are vocalizing their dissent of this plan.

Please do not approve this plan - it is environmentally destructive, socially unjust, and deeply un-American.

Jose Antonio Vargas on Immigration

Instead of watching the presidential debates tonight, I'm reading this article, something that lets me think about immigration rather than be filled with anger toward the two men "debating" and avoiding answering questions.

Quotes from Jose Antonio Vargas' Time Magazine article called "Not Legal, Not Leaving:"

• I am now a walking conversation that most people are uncomfortable having. (Pg. 1)
• The probusiness GOP waves a KEEP OUT flag at the Mexican border and a HELP WANTED sign 100 yards in, since so many industries depend on cheap labor. (Pg. 2)
• Of all the questions I've been asked in the past year, "Why don't you become legal?" is probably the most exasperating. But it speaks to how unfamiliar most Americans are with how the immigration process works. (Pg. 3)
• For all the roadblocks, though, many of us get by thanks to our fellow Americans. We rely on a growing network of citizens — Good Samaritans, our pastors, our co-workers, our teachers who protect and look after us. As I've traveled the country, I've seen how members of this underground railroad are coming out about their support for us too. (Pg. 6)
• Though roughly 59% of the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are from Mexico, the rest are not. About 1 million come from Asia and the Pacific Islands, about 800,000 from South America and about 300,000 from Europe. (Pg. 6)
• According to the Office of Immigration Statistics at DHS, 86% of undocumented immigrants have been living in the U.S. for seven years or longer. (Pg. 7)
• There are no overall numbers on this, but each day I encounter at least five more openly undocumented people. As a group and as individuals, we are putting faces and names and stories on an issue that is often treated as an abstraction. (Pg. 7)

• Technology, especially social media, has played a big role. Online, people are telling their stories and coming out, asking others to consider life from their perspective and testing everyone's empathy quotient. Some realize the risks of being so public; others, like me, think publicity offers protection. (Pg. 8)
• I am still here. Still in limbo. So are nearly 12 million others like me — enough to populate Ohio. We are working with you, going to school with you, paying taxes with you, worrying about our bills with you. What exactly do you want to do with us? More important, when will you realize that we are one of you? (Pg. 9)

TSA scanners and gender

"After all, masculinity implies sexual privacy -- the privilege of moving through life unmolested. Or unnoticed. The most powerful, and to men, mostly invisible, sexual privilege of masculinity is the ability to remain unaware of oneself as a body."

I suppose I never included that in my concept of male privilege, but it seems dead on.

Quote from an interesting (and concise) take on the TSA scanners:
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=screening_for_gender

Walruses??!

And I QUOTE:

"How can Exxon Mobil have walruses in the response plan for the Gulf of Mexico?"

Story & video @ Huff Post.

4 Rs, for eaRth day

In a consumerist culture where forces act to keep us buying stuff we don't need, no wonder that the rest of this iceberg is left hidden from view. It pisses me off to see recycling touted as the way to 'save the earth,' to the neglect of these 3 other more important actions and lifestyles. Do it, or if you need to hear it again, here:
1) Reject those things you don't need. Don't buy shit that isn't sustainable. At least try not to. Don't buy into the idea that you 'need' to buy anything.
2) Reduce your consumption - buy less. Choose things with less packaging.
3) Reuse: think creatively about the waste that you do create. Compost. DIY.
4) Recycle: you know the drill.

But I don't really mean to be preachy at you. Just saying that this mass of actions below the surface is being hidden from us, as we're herded into doing as little as possible.

Letter to the Editor

I'm trying to clean out my closet of random things I've pack-ratted away during 4 years at college. I ran across this:


Campus sexual assault should not be tolerated
April 24th, 2008

What kind of society do we live in when women are not allowed to walk home without being in fear?

I was walking home from a library after a few intense hours of paper-writing. Around midnight, I decided to take a well-lit street home. As I walked past a dorm, a young man yelled at me, threatening to anally rape me. I didn't dare flinch nor look in his direction. A few seconds later, another man demanded me to answer. I spent the next few blocks walking fast, my heart racing, looking over my shoulder.

This story is not rare, nor an exception to the rule. It is ludicrous that it continues.

We must no longer tolerate this kind of behavior. It is a direct violation of the University's policy on sexual harassment; perpetrators must be held accountable to provide the safe environment promised to students on campus. What is the state of our campus community when students feel so confident to publicly commit such acts of sexual assault? It is essential that this not be tolerated on any level. Individually, it could be as simple as telling people you know about your experiences, rather than silencing them. Speak out against this.

We must come together and address the issue of sexual harassment, assault and violence as a community and commit to taking measures to end it. We should develop and promote education efforts that can be taken seriously by all students.

We must start respecting each other. Only from a profound lack of respect for fellow community members can one verbally threaten strangers on the street, and we must meet this disrespect with a steadfast will to overcome it.

This is not acceptable; our campus should not condone its continuance, and we should cultivate respect for one another.

Ari Sahagun
Senior in LAS

Latin America + Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein has been at UIUC for the past few days. Today I had the privilege to attend a panel discussion with her and two academics (Prof. Fernando Coronil, Univ. of Michigan; Prof. Andrew Orta, UIUC) on "The rise of current social movements and protests in Latin America."

It was interesting, to say the least, and refreshingly reminded me that I am situated very close to a college campus. I'd been away from the academic air for a while.

Klein built upon arguments presented at her main lecture last night (I was unable to attend) and in her book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her project is to promote a counter-narrative to the unquestioned neoliberal responses to disasters. Lately, see: 9/11, Katrina, and the bailout "plan." The government has responded to these catastrophes by capitalizing on public shock and fear to push an agenda (war in Iraq/Patriot Act, racism/commercialization of NOLA/overlooking of basic infrastructure problems, free reins with $700B). Additionally, we haven't done a good job at remembering history as it happened either. Thus, we're shocked at the shock...and during this our freedoms are stolen right out from under us, without question.

Klein says we Americans are "addicted to shock."

In the context of Latin America, she said that it is the most advanced site of resistance against this "shock doctrine" and neoliberalism. She cited a few reasons (and noted that it's an incomplete list):

1. It got neoliberalism first.
2. It was an extremely obvious un-democratic (violent and/or racist) overthrow of the status quo.
3. The left there wasn't discredited. Compared to the Soviet bloc, the left (socialist) side didn't fall; in Latin America, it was put down. People can't point to the left and say they screwed it up before.

She said we have a lot to learn from Latin American organizing during our own "reconstruction period."

I think she's got some good points, and I'll put her book on my "to read" list. ...Also, she was recently on Colbert Report if you'd like to see her in action.

This is also an interesting story.

Don't forget!

the cost of freedom

i've seen a few bumper stickers or whatnot declaring that "freedom is not free." i don't really understand this. at the korean war veteran's memorial in washington d.c. there is an engraving that says this, too.

i'm not sure if this is the truth (as something that would exist outside our (human created) society) or if it's a social creation. if it is the latter, is it created to make us feel more ok about war, about dying, using literally billions of dollars to promote this militant idea of freedom? if the former is true, what is the cost of freedom? lives lost? dollars spent? time? effort? is freedom part of what is natural and, perhaps to extrapolate that: innate? well, if it's not free, who sells it? is this something i can buy or barter for?

i personally believe that freedom (or lack thereof) is a creation, a state of mind or state of being. i believe that society can tell you that you are not free, and even physically restrain you (i.e. in jail), but then we get into different definitions of freedom. here's a poem, by ho chi minh:

Although they have tightly bound my arms and legs,
All over the mountain I hear the song of birds,
And the forest is filled
with the perfume of spring-flowers.
Who can prevent me from freely enoying these,
which take from the long journery
a little of its lonliness?

this is the freedom that i relate to. i do not yet understand the freedom which is not free.

peace

i'm reading a book by thich nhat hanh called creating true peace (isbn: 0743245199). i started as a response to a jewish friend who supported both peace and israel bombing lebanon. i want to understand that contradiction, so i can live through it and create peace. i also want to share some memorable quotes from the book, and they follow.

• "we have allowed violence to accumulate in us for too long because he have had no strategy to deal with it." pg. 14
  
• "we create true peace when we are inclusive of others...exclusion, getting caught by our views, is a deep-seated habit that arises from fear and misunderstanding of others." pg. 15
  
• "when we hold back our feelings and ignore our pain, we are committing violence against ourselves. the practice of nonviolence is to be here, to be present, and to recognize our own pain or despair." pg. 16
  
• "...striving to increase our compassion does not mean that instantly there are only positive elements in us. if this were the case, there would be no need to practice." pg. 35
  
• "there is no walk for peace; peace must be the walk." pg. 65