Political dump (aka interesting stuff to my green anarchist self)

Attractive title, right?

Anyway, I realized that I've only really talked about unschooling for a while now, and been really quiet (for me, anyway) about my political (or lack thereof) views. However, that doesn't mean that I haven't been watching, reading, talking, and thinking about said lack of politics views. So, I decided to share a bunch of stuff that's been interesting to me lately. I hope this is of interest to at least a few of my readers!

Firstly, I absolutely LOVE Submedia.tv. They have a show called It's The End of the World As We Know It every week or couple of weeks, usually around 15 minutes, that just does a wonderful job of putting current events, news, and information on green anarchist (anarchist in general, but with a very definite green lean) stuff in an amusing, engaging, and informative way. You should definitely check it out: Submedia.tv

The newest episode:


Next, I also enjoy watching videos by these two guys on YouTube, AdamHintz and MeursaultBateman. They both talk about issues of green anarchy, sustainability, and similar things.

Something I'm very against is the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia (if you look at the sidebar of my blog, you may have noticed that I have a badge against the Olympics). Lots of people react with surprise when I say that. "What's wrong with the Olympics?", they ask. Well, here's what's wrong with the Olympics: Why We Resist 2010 (taken from the website no2010.com)

I've also been looking into the G20 summit protests since I got home from camp, and there seems to have been the seemingly fairly normal amount of police brutality. Here are a couple of videos showing what I mean:

Police State Uses Violence Against Protesters - Intro by Howard Zinn



Police Attack Students at University of Pittsburgh



Also, I may have mentioned a while back that I really wanted to go to the Rethinking Education conference, especially so I could hear Daniel Quinn speak. Well, I didn't end up making it, but his speech was posted online! Thanks to both Eli and Josh for sending the link to me! :-) Check out part one here.

Oh, and here's Derrick Jensen's newest article from Orion magazine: Side with the Living

FINALLY, for a long time, I didn't like rap or hip-hop music. However, relatively recently I've discovered that there's some really good stuff out there! The main thing I never liked was the lyrics. The whole gansta hip-hop thing, with ho's and money and guns, never appealed to me. Radical political hip-hop, on the other hand, is totally different! So here are a couple of my favorites...

Light It Up 2.0, produced by Ratatat, and as far as I can tell, lyrics and (obviously) sung by zzz33333



You're a Fucking Terrorist by Resident Anti-Hero (you can listen to, and download, all of their music for free at their site)



Annnd that's all for now! Hope I didn't make this too long!

Peace,
Idzie

Police. Why oh why do they dislike youth...

So, I don't usually like writing two posts in one day, and I try not too. But while this is still fresh in my mind, I figured I'd post about it. Now, knowing my opinions and all, it probably doesn't surprise you to know that I'm not a huge fan of the police force. And cops have never seemed very big fans of youth. A friend of mine was told not to wear his earphones while walking along the side of the road by a cop. Suspicious looks from every man in uniform are directed at anyone who wears a hoodie and is under 30. And there just generally seems to be a feeling of tension whenever cops and kids are in the same vicinity. But back to the incident that led me to write this post. My sister, three friends, and I were walking to one of our friends houses, when a pretty average car pulled over and said something or other along the lines of 'hey'. Now, I should make it clear that it's not all that uncommon for a car/scooter full of drunk and/or high people to pull over and ask either idiotic questions, or directions to the nearest party, so we usually just ignore them. It's also not uncommon for cars full of extremely high people to whiz past at ridiculous speeds, swerve towards people to scare them (yes, that has seriously happened, and more than once), or honk their horn when right behind people to also scare them. So, we don't like random cars, and ignore them if we can. But for this particular case, we were a bit past the car when the driver yelled "Police!" and switched on the lights so we'd know it was a cop car. So we stopped. "Where are you going?" inquired the driver. I was thinking "None of your business", but luckily didn't say that. Instead, my friend cheerfully informed the cop that we were going to his house. "Are you going to a party?" he further inquired. "Umm, no" was the rather bemused response. I can never get over the stupidity of police. If we were going to a party, would we really tell them? After assuring themselves that we were not going to a party, they drove away. But I remained pissed. I wasn't even sure they were really police at first, as I was furthest from the car and ignoring them at first, thinking they were drunk idiots and all. But the guys assured me they were actually wearing uniforms, so really were what they said they were. Wow. People go on about how free we are, yet men with guns can pull over and ask us where we're going, and we answer for fear of being arrested on some made up charge, as others who are completely innocent have been. That really bothers me. And proves quite clearly to me that we are far from free. *Sighs* And I suppose you could say that they're trying to stop those speeding idiots I mentioned above, but I doubt stopping pedestrians is going to help that. There have never been police around for any of the actually bad stuff that goes on, yet they're right there to intimidate the innocents when we aren't doing anything even remotely "wrong". *Grumbles* But I'll end this, once again, political post before I can rant any more.

Peace,
Idzie