Un Étoile Errant

“Every one of the books in this long list has been censored, most of them repeatedly. Parents, teachers, librarians, school boards, and booksellers have found themselves and their sensibilities challenged by the words between these covers. Even in this lineup, Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger’s epic coming-of-age story from the 1950s, stands out as one of the most censored books of all time. Condemned for qualities that “promote perversion,” this book has been proclaimed “immoral,” “anti-white,” “rebellious,” and “profane.” One parent counted 785 “dirty words” and proclaimed the book to be “Communist.” As you look at these familiar titles, consider whether you find them all to be suitable for yourself, your children, or your grandmother. In many challenges, those objecting to the material haven’t read more than a few passages. Can literature be fairly judged if it is not treated as a whole work? Or, are there some words and ideas that are simply too dangerous or offensive to be read?” (via myimaginarybrooklyn)

(Source: explore.lib.virginia.edu, via myimaginarybrooklyn)

(via nothingyoucansaywillchangemymind)

Robert Downey Jr.  (via casperviola)

(via failure33object)

failure33object:

My perpetual argument. People lose their shit over welfare spending, but don’t complain half so much about what we’re spending on killing people. I like this guy.

(Source: sansastone)

arreter:

Fire Escape Collapse, Stanley Forman

On July 22, 1975 in Boston, a 19-year-old and her 2-year-old goddaughter were trapped in a burning building. A firefighter, Robert O’Neill, shielded them from the flames as a fire ladder inched closer. Then the fire escape collapsed. Although the woman died from her injuries, the infant survived. Fire Escape Collapsecirculated around the world. The photo led to the passage of new fire escape legislation across the country.

(Source: blknymph)

Dean Obeidallah. (via mehreenkasana)

Roger Ebert (via vaginawoolf)

(Source: ibad, via elbuhocongafas)

Passage to Ecuador: Chomsky, Assange, sham justice, sham democracies. (via London Progressive Journal)

Iraq has been torn to pieces by sectarianism since the US invasion and occupation, Libya is in turmoil in the aftermath of NATO intervention, Pakistan is being destabilised and a proxy war is being stoked by the US and its allies in Syria.

Filed under: Not surprised.

(via mehreenkasana)

anarcho-queer:

Walmart Heirs Have As Much Wealth As Bottom 40 Percent Of Americans Combined

Last year, Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, found that as of 2007, the Walton family — heirs to the Walmart fortune — had a net worth equal to that of the bottom 30 percent of Americans. And due to the effects of the Great Recession that ratio has gotten substantially worse.

New Federal Reserve data analyzed by both Allegretto and Josn Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute shows that the Waltons now hold as much wealth as the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined:

Concretely, between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion…In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.

And in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.

Allegretto charted the change in wealth over the 2007-2010 period:

At the same time that the Waltons have amassed an ever larger fortune, Congress decided to cut the estate tax, a policy for which the Waltons have been pushing for years. And now that the estate tax cut is in place, conservatives are doing everything they can to ensure it doesn’t go away, allowing the Waltons to amass even larger amounts of wealth.

(via sarahstocracy)

(Source: , via keleighelizabeth)

blahblahblasphemy:

For some reason this particular gentleman just amuses me.

uhm?

from the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda  (via thefreenomad)

(Source: mikedoc73, via sweetlittlefairytale245)

—Peter Gelderloos, Why Nonviolence Protects the State- Nonviolence is Racist (via thefullmetalbitch)

I would like to have this on my blog again.

(via intricate-veins)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m always glad to see people being productively critical of non-violent discourse, but I think there’s a tricky line as well, where it’s turning into “If you choose non-violent resistance, you’re an apologist sell out”, where non-violent discourse is being painted as a purely neo-colonialist phenomenon. What about Native peoples who do believe in non-violent resistance, even now in hind sight, and it’s not apologist politics? I say this after extended conversations with a Mi’kmaq professor and her son, who made me embarrassed about the ways I talked about non-violence. What about Palestinians who think violent resistance is justified but no longer working to their advantage? Non-violent resistance can mean different things. What do we mean by violence and non-violence anyway? When I think of violence, I think of the imperialist/colonial state apparatus that is fueled by violence in both the visible/physical and invisible/systemic/psychological forms, with the latter being key. Which is to say, I actually don’t imagine resistant violence to actually be violence per se, which is why I ask: is there room to think and talk about a “non-violent resistance” that speaks outside of the above parameters, that is subversive and “violent” but not merely in the corporeal sense? Is there a way to engage in so-called “non violence” without being consumed by the foundational violence of the structures we are working within?

These are just impulsively written thoughts, don’t take them as fully formed or anything.

(via residueatlas)

I used to be profoundly anti-violent resistance. And most of that was because I, coming from a position of ignorance and privilege, was taught that violent resistance was not resistance, but generally random explosive violence without cause or purpose. Thus, I should be afraid of it and if ever called upon to participate, instantly refuse. It was generally understood to be the hallmark of an inherent flaw in the marginalized population who had finally had enough—their anger, their irrationality, their inability to reason, etc. The stance on violent resistance ignored historical and social truth, racism and other -isms, to further demonize and dehumanize communities. It still does. 

I do not personally believe that certain forms of non-violent resistance are an emblem of the selling out or weakening of a movement. I believe that the privileging of non-violence (instead of viewing it as one of any given number of tactics or strategies or the like) in common modern discourse is NOT an accident or anything other than a calculated move and it is that very same elevation of nonviolence as the ONLY ‘right’/’moral’ way to revolt that is so, so wrong.

I know it is no coincidence that schools in the US revere Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. for their ‘nonviolence’, but will never talk about the violence that was ever present in both their societies and the movements of resistance around them. Oftentimes, it is not the nonviolent act itself that is reactionary but the credence it is given at the expense of all other forms of resistance.

The other questions you raise are good ones as well and I’ll probably be thinking about them for quite some time to come.

(via intricate-veins)

(via azaadi)

themajesticbim:

The face of Malcolm X, famous African American Muslim leader and human rights activist, is depicted using the Diwani Jali Arabic calligraphy script. The text is an Arabic translation of the following quote, obviously repeated many times:

“If violence is wrong in America, then violence is wrong abroad.”- Malcolm, X 1963

YES!

(via my-sufi-heart)

toobaa:

“Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.” 

―  A.S. Byatt