strictly distractive

folkalley.com/archives/000559.php
Now I know why Dylan struggles to talk
September 29, 2005 -- 28 comments


folkalley.com/archives/000574.php As students of American history are aware, the regular celebration of Thanksgiving in this country did not begin unil 1863, and our current use of the fourth Thursday in November was not set by Congress until 1941.

But for those who are interested in both the myth and the reality of the "Pilgrims' Thanksgiving", I offer the following link to a cool Mayflower website.

Anyone out there care to share particularly memorable Thanksgiving songs?
Posted by Jim Pipkin

------ 12th comment:
a publication that excels at stepping in and back out with such great strides that the times of the pilgrims, what they found and did with 'it' (almost all of it) is kept in mind and set off in light of other major movements of men (dominated women) is counterpunch and a fresh addition is this:

counterpunch.com/neumann11112005.html November 11, 2005 -- The Rebel King of Bluegrass - Jimmy Martin: an Appreciation --- By MICHAEL NEUMANN



swaneagle:
"I see the acceleration of physical abuse, abandonment of mothers, sexual assault
to be directly related to the growth of colonialist narco free trade, the destruction of land based cultures and the valuing of competition and profit over healthy relationships."

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That's a little bit too easy. In many "relationship-based" that is to say "kinship-based" cultures the abuse of women is not even seen as abuse -- just as a sign that the owner cares. Cultures in which women are serially raped in order to punish the males to whom they belong (a recent incident in Pakistan) may be free from market relations and yet persist in femicide and abuse. In such cultures women may see a factory job as a step up.

Joanna


> George Gilder, incidentally, understood this very well. I don't have the quotes at hand, but he's very explicit on how the right to abortion puts women in control of the reproductive process, which undermines the authority of men.


This is true but it does not got far enough. In reality it transaltes into saying that women have power inasfar as they refrain from having children. Because once you have children you must contend with other issues like feeding them, educating them, getting medical care, and raising them. None of these things are resolved by controlling the reproductive process alone. (Of course, having the power to have one kid rather than ten helps.) In other words, if in having children one gives hostages to fortune, in a society in which men have power, the act of having children will always make one weaker and more apt to serve whoever the masters happen to be. After I had kids I worked much harder at my job because of my kids. So, in this society, we wind up with the paradox that I, as a woman, have the most perfect freedom from men by not having any children. That is I am most free as a woman by ceasing to function as a woman. An impotent feminism!

This is why, for me, the whole discussion about whether reproductive freedom is a woman's issue or a man's issue simply exposes the fallacy of gender-based politics. Whatever affects women affects men and vice versa. (Master/Slave in another guise.) The greatest advance in "sexual liberation" will come when we all recognize that military subscription is both a man's and woman's issue and that the right to abortion is not
just a woman's issue....etc. Until we learn to speak in this new way, we will forever be splitting the working class into more and more ineffectual splinters.

Joanna


These are complex, critical issues that, yes, are a bit too easy to address without the total context to each unique situation. The progress women make is all too often undercut by the rapid destruction of customary life and that destruction is furthered by existing patriarchy, exploited by corporate greed mongering take over. The situation for women in Afghanistan is definitely furthered by U.S. invasion terribly augmented by already existing misogyny, whether it is the Taliban, US allies or those scapegoating women due to their
own hardship. Strange how it is. It is hideous for women all over the planet and those of us who can adress it must before we are not allowed to.

In the case of Gutemala, the Mayan introduction to patriarchy came from the
Spanish and the catholics.

NAFTA flooded the Mexican market with cheap corn ruining over a million and a half farmers forcing millions to head north. Some continue crossing over the border. Millions more inhaibt squalid slums along the border such as in Ciudad Juarez. It is the factory workers of the maquiladoras that comprise the majority of the toruture-rape- mutilation-murders of women in Juarez. The murders of men exceed that of women, but it is not sexualized in nature. This is also the case in Guatemala and other Central American countries as well as Colombia.

In Tuba City, AZ, where hundreds of traditional Dineh (Navajos) have been forcibly relocated due to corporate resource extraction, such murders of the daughters of relocatees are occurring as are murders of men as well. It is the legacy of School of the Americas mentality that has always afflicted the agenda of colonialism.

polyamorysociety.org/

cog.org/witch_hunt.html


http://culturecandy.org / Baton Rouge area treasure trove of art and music
http://melissaferrick.com/communityLinks.asp
greatnewmusic.com/ 12 solo artists so far

?? culturecandy link ?? Pulse (video footage of tiny puppets and paraphernalia laden theater): "The three characters, Blood, Lava, and Electricity represent the human animal, the natural world, and civilization respectively. Blood grapples with both Lava and Electricity in their rivalry for control. "Pulse" shows humanity not as the strong rational rulers of the earth but instead as a tormented figure that struggles to find security in an uncertain world."