The Female Force Erputs

The earthquakes in New Zealand and the tremors that have been shaking the earth all around the Ring of Fire are connected with the events in Northern Africa and the Middle East. The roiling energy that is escaping where it can from underneath the Earth’s crust is being reflected in the uprisings of people who live in the very regions where the chain of humanity reaches far back into history’s depths.

Hope Began Anew

Euardo Galeano
photo by Wikipedia author, Daniel Zanini H

Ojalá podamos ser desobedientes, cada vez que recibimos órdenes que humillan nuestra conciencia o violan nuestro sentido común. †

If only we could be disobedient, each time we receive orders that humiliate our conscience or violate our common sense.

Imagine that – Eduardo Galeano’s wish has come to pass.

There are those who look upon the momentous events in North Africa and the Middle East, at the underlying food crisis at the base of these events, at an uncertain future with fear in their hearts, and then there are those who, like, me, are full of hope.

I am in no way optimistic but I remain a prisoner of hope. ‡

The Heroes of Egypt

Tahrir Square, Friday of Departure
photo by Mona sosh

79 million people strong, the Heroes of Egypt have at last triumphed over the Pharaos of Fear.

Hosni Mubarak has ruled the Land of the Pharaos through the Might of Fear – fear of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he fed to Israel and the United States in return for their support; fear of foreign imperialism, which he fed to his own people in return for their consent; and fear of chaos, behind which he built his wall of impenetrability; behind which the corruption by business and political elites continued to prop him up; behind which his brutal military and police tortured any Agents of Change that were perceived to be Enemies of the State of cruel Stability.

Mother River Power



Mother River
Statue of Mother Huang He, Lanzhou, China - photo by Fanghong

They are the wombs of civilization – Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Indus, the Yellow, and the Coatzalcualcos River Valleys. Agriculture, mathematics, written languages, astronomy, architecture, religious and social hierarchy, and urban culture were the children that they bore. These children were the eldest sons of the agriculture-based societies that fathered virtually all that defines modern humanity. The distant pasts of these civilizations define the struggles of today – pasts that share a kinship, even if they knew nothing of each other for millennia before contacts were made between them. They are brothers born of Mother River.

Más allá de Vietnam: Un tiempo para romper el silencio (parte II) - Por el Rev Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr con Lyndon B Johnson

Leer parte I de este discurso aquí

English speakers please read this astounding speech here:
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence By Rev. Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967

Más allá de Vietnam: Un tiempo para romper el silencio

parte II

Libertadores extraños

Nuestro gobierno se parece entonces que el pueblo vietnamita no estaban "listos" para la independencia, y volvimos a caer víctima de la arrogancia occidental mortal que ha envenenado la atmósfera internacional por tanto tiempo. Con esa trágica decisión rechazamos un gobierno revolucionario que buscaba la autodeterminación, y un gobierno que no se hubiese creado por China (para los que los vietnamitas no tienen gran amor), pero claramente por las fuerzas indígenas que incluía a algunos comunistas. Para los campesinos este nuevo gobierno significó una verdadera reforma agraria, una de las necesidades más importantes en sus vidas.

Más allá de Vietnam: Un tiempo para romper el silencio Por el Rev. Martin Luther King

Hoy es el Día de Martin Luther King, Jr. en los Estados Unidos. Por este presento el primer parte de un discurso menos conocida de los discursos del Dr. King en las masas, porque va más allá del tema de derechos civiles al tema de que todos somos conectados, una idea muy amenazadora a la estructura del poder de los Estados Unidos. Él fue asesinado exactamente un año después.

Esto es traducido por yo, entonces, puede ser menos que correcto. Sobre la traducción de las palabras “America” y “American,” conozco que la práctica es traducir estas palabras como “Los Estados Unidos” y “estadounidenses,” por sus intentos. Pero la verdad es que los estadounidenses casi siempre se refirieren a su país como “America,” incluso cuando estan tan conciente que Dr. King erá de que los Estados Unidos son sólo parte de América.

English speakers please read this astounding speech here:
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence By Rev. Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967

Hope Begins Anew

What a beautiful summer day we are starting the New Year out with. After a peaceful, gentle beginning, a late afternoon thunderstorm passed through, left a trail of evening sunshine in its wake, and then, all of a sudden, another, stronger one has moved in, striking bolts of lightning whose thunders echo all around the valley... and now – quel lluvias!

I can’t help but be filled with hope for the future, today. But it is not just the invigorating weather that is affecting me. It is the discovery, today, on this first day of 2011, of a writer and journalist by the name of Stig Dagerman, a Swede whose star blazed a brilliant path across post-WWII Europe, an enlightened soul who wrote of imagining peace long before John Lennon spoke of the same.