The Largest Minority

December 11th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Kabataang maka-Bayan (KmB) is a progressive Filipino youth organization of which I’m honored to be a part of. On November 29th, KmB held Carnival ng Masa, or The Peoples Carnival, to celebrate their ten-year anniversary. There were corn dogs and games, but the highlight of the evening was the educational, yet entertaining multimedia performance at the end of the night. All 11 videos documenting the performance are embedded in the playlist above. Enjoy the show and please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

December 3rd, 2009 by Guest

On November 19th, President Barack Obama wrote a stirring tribute in USA Today to the most famous draft resister in US history, Muhammad Ali. On Tuesday, Obama spoke at West Point, calling for an increase of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, with a speech that recalled the worst shadings of George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

On November 19th, Obama wrote about why Ali’s photo hangs over his desk, praising “The Greatest” for “his unique ability to summon extraordinary strength and courage in the face of adversity, to navigate the storm and never lose his way.” On Tuesday, Obama showed neither courage nor strength but the worst kind of imperial arrogance. He asserted America’s right to go into a deeply impoverished country that - from Alexander the Great to the USSR to today - has made clear to the world’s empires that it wants to be left the hell alone.

On Tuesday, Obama summoned the spectre of 9/11 and said, “It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united–bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear.” He didn’t mention how many innocent Afghans had already died in eight years of “horrific attacks” on their homeland or how many would die in the months ahead, defending their own homeland.

On November 19th, Obama praised Ali as “a force for reconciliation and peace around the world.” On Tuesday the Nobel Peace Prize winner, reconciled himself with war.

Would that Muhammad Ali still had his voice. Would that Parkinson’s disease and dementia had not robbed us of his razor-sharp tongue.

Today, Ali has been described as “America’s only living saint.” But like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, both postage stamps before people, Ali has had his political teeth extracted.

But in a time when billions go to war and prisons while 50% of children will be on food stamps for the coming year, we can’t afford Ali, the harmless icon. Maybe Muhammad Ali has been robbed of speech, but I think we can safely guess what the Champ would say in the face of Obama’s war. We can safely guess, because he said it perfectly four decades ago:

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here….. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

Replace Vietnam with Afghanistan and it’s a message Barack Obama and our troops need to hear. But we shouldn’t wait for some celebrity or athlete to make that statement for us. Muhammad Ali may have helped shape the 1960s, but those years of resistance also shaped him. We need to rebuild the movement against war. We need to revive the real Muhammad Ali to inspire draft resistors of the future. We need to reclaim Ali from warmongers who would use his image to sell a war that will create more orphans than peace. This is the struggle of our lives and we have the Nobel-minted President of the United States on the other side of the barricades. Barack Obama can have the fawning media, the oadring generals, the RNC, and the liberal apologists on his side.

But he can’t have the Champ. Remove that poster from your wall Mr. President. Your Ali privileges have been revoked.

source

June 24th, 2009 by eejipshuness

The soulful Bill Withers was born in the unfortunately named city of Slab Fork, West Virginia in 1938. He is the youngest of 6 children, his father died when he was only 13, and he served in the US Navy for almost a decade before starting a career in music. He was almost immediately successful in the music industry, earning his first Grammy within 2 years of his demo audit with Clarence Avant of Sussex Records. Booker T. Jones (also of Sussex Records) produced his first album, which featured the chart-topping hit, “Aint No Sunshine”.

“Aint No Sunshine” alone has been covered by over 100 established artists, including Al Green, BB King, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Jackson, Otis Redding, The Police, The Temptations, and, you guessed it, Akon. “Use Me” has also been covered by some popular people like D’Angelo and Isaac Hayes, but I mostly picked it because it’s pretty awesome (especially on headphones) and Chico Brenes skated to it. (That’s how my boyfriend found it for me.)

Some other popular songs by Mr. Soul — I mean Withers — are “Lovely Day”, “Lean on Me”, “Just the Two of Us”, and “Grandma’s Hands” (which was sampled in the legendary old school hit “No Diggity” by Blackstreet).

In conclusion, Bill Withers is the shit.

May 16th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

I too had been deliberately ignoring this made up controversy but The Daily Show did such a good piece on it I thought I’d finally post something. I support marriage equality, but hearing a model who’s being judged on the appearance of her plastic body admit that she doesn’t think the same way I do doesn’t get me angry. Actually, it’s pretty reassuring when someone like that disagrees with you. What does get me angry is the fact that anyone would make her relevant in the first place. The very concept of such a contest angers me, as do self-described liberals who legitimize that contest by allowing it to have any power over them. Why not ask Flavor Flav his opinion on budget cuts and then feign outrage over his answers too?

Perhaps Democratic bloggers are creating enemies because they don’t think they have any real battles left now that they’re in the majority, but transforming this bimbo from a passing thought in the mind of a sweaty teenage boy into a Focus on the Family spokesperson is counterproductive. This girl was not an advocate. She had no power until large segments of the Left and gay community gave it to her. Additionally, if you’re for freedom of speech then you’re for it specifically for statements you find repulsive. Not only have these idiots given her more airtime for her views on this topic, but the rabid way they’ve done it makes the rest of us who actually do care about equality look like petty fascists. Way to go.

April 19th, 2009 by eejipshuness

I’ll be posting music I dig from time to time since Mr. Ryce held a gun to my ovaries. Maybe I’ll do something CRAZY once in a while and post an interesting article… or two.

Enjoy :)

Did you know…
The famous duo Hall & Oates first met in an elevator while escaping gang-related gunfire at a 1967-style battle of the bands function in Philadelphia’s Adelphi Ballroom. They didn’t actually become musical partners in crime until two years later. Their music has been an inspiration to countless noteworthy artists, such as De La Soul, John Mayer, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not to mention Michael Jackson, who once begged the pardon of Daryl Hall for using the “groove” of I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) in his 1983 chart-topper Billy Jean.

December 7th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

I’m not much of a sports fan, but I do enjoy the one-on-one nature of a good fight. Oscar’s always been a bit of a chump, so it was nice to see Manny humble him with a dominant performance in every round. Still, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for a guy who is probably forced to end his career on such a humiliating note.

Oh, and if you’re Mexican and received a gloating text message from a Filipino friend last night I’d like to apologize for all of us. At the exact moment De La Hoya gave up, everyone in the place I was watching the fight at immediately pulled out their phone and started texting. I’m sure the same happened in every Filipino household in America. Sorry, it’s a reflex.

July 4th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

In the state of Nevada, we needed 5,746 signatures to get Nader on the ballot for the general election. We got over 12,000 just in case. Many are bound to be bogus, and the Democrats will no doubt challenge us since Nevada is a “battleground state”. Still, it feels good to be done right at the deadline with our personal goal of 12,000 signatures met.

On the final day of petitioning to get Nader on the ballot in Nevada, I was actually booted from the Sahara West Library for informing a self-described Democrat that she subscribed to fascism.

Before the Nader/Gonzalez campaign came to Nevada, only Obama and McCain were allowed on the ballot in the general election. You can’t even write-in a candidate, so any voter who didn’t want to choose either one of the two corporate candidates was essentially denied their right to vote. I explained this to some lady exiting the library and she simply said it was fine with her if independents were disenfranchised. All that mattered was that we get a Democrat in the White House, democracy be damned.

Thinking that perhaps she misunderstood, I explained again that by signing my petition she was not endorsing Ralph Nader, but simply allowing him to be on the ballot so that people would have the right to vote for him if they chose to do so. Whether or not she agreed with their choice was irrelevant. She still refused to sign, insisting that choice for all Americans should be limited to just the two candidates she found acceptable. I told her that that was not democracy, but fascism. She shrugged her shoulders and we both walked away, disgusted with each other.

Not too long after the interaction, a security guard and library manager exercised a bit of fascism of their own. Apparently, the manager had received a call from the woman who was offended that I had called her a fascist. I gave the manager a brief civics lesson, recapped our conversation, and explained that my tone was calm and matter-of-factual with the woman, but she still insisted that I had to leave for “harassing” guests. I was surprised that a library manager would try to pull this shit on public property, but I eventually did leave since we were on a deadline and needed to spend time gathering signatures rather than challenging the library’s decision.

So after banging my head against a wall for several minutes, I walked a couple miles to a less-shaded grocery store parking lot to fill my quota for the day and work on my skin cancer. Both came along fairly well.

I’m sharing this story because most people don’t realize the obstacles that small campaigns face at every turn. Petitioners are told to “fuck off” and “go to hell” by complete strangers all day. Add 115 degree heat and the divisive name of “Ralph Nader” to the equation and you’ve got one grueling job that only someone with a tremendous amount of passion and dedication could do every single day. My utmost respect goes out to everyone who’s decided to stay through the entire roadtrip, but a special bit of recognition is needed for my small family of Vegas petitioners (Team Tanq) and the thankless work we did to get Ralph on the ballot in Nevada. We conquered that fucking state.

June 23rd, 2008 by Sam

From the Associated Press:

A publicist for George Carlin says the legendary comedian has died of heart failure at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif.

Jeff Abraham says Carlin went into St. John’s Health Center on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain. Carlin died at 5:55 p.m. PDT. He was 71.

Although Carlin’s prime may have slightly preceded my generation, I would be remiss to not mention the profound influence watching his old HBO specials had on the development of my own personal political consciousness. Carlin’s scathing critiques of American foreign policy, capitalist “freedom,” and religious dogma provided a hilarious and often profound respite from mainstream political dialogue before I discovered alternative media and other radical forums for interpreting and discussing our modern world.

Witness Carlin in a guest spot on Bill Maher’s Real Time perfectly dissecting what “choice” means in a capitalist democracy. (see video below the fold)

(Image courtesy of georgecarlin.com)

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