Photos by Ellen Davidson
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, in the first three months of 2012, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 203,500 times: 181,457 were totally innocent (89 percent), 108,097 were black (54 percent), 69,043 were Latino (33 percent), 18,387 were white (9 percent).
MINNESOTA OCCUPIERS PREVENT EVICTION
Platoons of sheriffs descended on the Cruz family home in Minneapolis in a 4:00 a.m. raid may 24, arresting five nonviolent supporters in the second failed eviction attempt in 48 hours. Fifty protesters mobilized to defend the home and outflanked the sheriffs by marching through an alley into the backyard, causing the sheriffs to retreat without fully securing the home.
“An army of sheriffs marched in military-style and busted down the door in the dead of night,” said Ben Egerman, an organizer with occupy Homes MN. “It’s unconscionable that Sheriff Rich Stanek ordered the violent eviction of this home a second time, especially when he is fully aware of active negotiations between the family and the bank to resolve the situation peacefully.”
Several protesters who had locked themselves to structures in and around the home sustained minor injuries as sheriffs forcibly removed them from the balcony and roof with jackhammers and electric saws.
Occupy Homes MN had been defending the home since April 30 in a round-the clock eviction blockade to demand PnC Bank negotiate with the Cruz family, who fell into foreclosure when the bank failed to withdraw their online payment.
“It’s clear that Sheriff Stanek would rather kick families out of their homes than work with our communities,” said Martha Ockenfels-Martinez of occupy Homes. “We’re still here and we will not be moved from this home until we see a good faith negotiation.”
On June 29, the arrested activists discovered that the city attorney has decided to escalate their charges. Prosecutors at the city attorney’s office originally charged the group of Cruz family supporters with trespassing, and have now moved to significantly more serious charges including third degree riot, a gross misdemeanor which carries a sentence of up to one year in prison and a $3,000 fine.
For more information, see www.occupyhomesmn.org.
—Occupy Homes MN
FRANCE'S BEARDED LADIES
The red carpet ceremony of the venerable French film festival at Cannes was disrupted may 21 by five women wearing false beards and carrying signs congratulating the men who directed all 22 of the films in competition this year.
The five were members of the feminist group la Barbe—the beard—which protests the exclusion of women from political and cultural power. In keeping with a long French tradition of infusing protest with laughter, members don beards to suggest that power still belongs to that segment of the population that is more likely to have beards. “In the days of the Third Republic, all the great men used to wear big beards. That was the end of the 19th century but not much has changed in the way many men behave and think in France,” political science student Ilana Eloit recently told the BBC.
In the group’s four-year existence, its members have invaded and interrupted meetings and forums including those of the Institut de France; have issued denunciations of sexism in politics, culture, and the media; and have climbed monuments to affix false beards to monumental sculptures of women like the one in the Place de la République that represents the French Revolution.
La Barbe came together after the 2007 election campaign of Socialist Party politician Ségolène Royal for the French presidency. It was the first time a major French party had nominated a woman, and Royal’s campaign was assailed with questions that would never have faced a male candidate, including, “Who will take care of her children if she’s performing presidential duties?” Royal lost the election to Nicolas Sarkozy; this past May, François Hollande, her former partner and the father of her children, defeated Sarkozy to become the new president of France. During the bitterly fought campaign, no one asked who was taking care of Hollande—and Royal’s—children.
—Judith Mahoney Pasternak
REPORT ASSAILS CONDITIONS IN JORDAN VALLEY
The international organization Oxfam has released a report on the area ofthe Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) under Israeli administration called “Area C,” which includes the Jordan valley. The report describes how the lives of Palestinians living in the Jordan valley and elsewhere in Area C are severely limited economically and pushed into greater poverty by a raft of restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities. The recently announced Israeli government proposals and policies for the expansion of settlements further threaten the living conditions and human rights of Palestinian communities. It is therefore vital, declares Oxfam, that the international community act now to ensure that the vision of two states living side by side in peace, security, and prosperity can be realized.
Quoting last year’s report by the European Union (EU) Heads of Diplomatic Mission, the Oxfam report reiterates that, “The window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing … Area C comprises crucial natural resources and land for the future demographic and economic growth of a viable Palestinian state.”
Oxfam therefore urges that the EU member states:
• Move beyond statements and take urgent action to press the government of Israel to end the construction of settlements and comply with its responsibilities under international law…
• Take immediate steps to ensure the implementation of [recent conclusions and recommendations of EU bodies including] a) putting pressure on the government of Israel to transfer planning authority relating to Palestinian villages and towns in the Jordan valley and across Area C to Palestinian control; b) taking firm, collective diplomatic action at the highest level to push for an end to the unlawful demolition of Palestinian civilian infrastructure; ...
• Press for conditions that will allow for the full implementation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)-EU Association Agreement, which provides real opportunities for Palestinian produce to access European markets, including urgently pushing for an end to Israeli restrictions on the movement and transport of goods.
• In the absence of an Israeli planning regime that seeks to alleviate poverty among the Palestinian population, initiate and support development projects in the Jordan valley and other parts of Area C even if they have not been approved by the Israeli Civil Administration (unless Israeli refusal is based on genuine security concerns that are legitimate under international law) ...
For the full report, see oxf.am/JWk.
—Oxfam
THE VAGINA DIALOGUES
Dialogues — implying communication — may be an exaggeration. This started with a monologue: a June 13 argument by michigan Rep. lisa Brown protesting a ban on all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, which was under discussion in the michigan House of Representatives. “I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina,” declared Brown, “but no means no.”
A little while later, Barb Byrum, another representative, attempted to propose an amendment that would have equally restricted men’s access to vasectomies.
Both legislators were called out of order, directed to stop speaking, and barred the next day from speaking on a different subject. explaining the action by the Speaker of the Michigan House, a spokesperson told The Detroit News that “it was the prerogative of majority Floor leader Jim Stamas, R-midland, to maintain order and decorum during the session of the House,” adding that the two women would “not be recognized to speak on the House floor today after being gaveled down for their comments and actions yesterday that failed to maintain the decorum of the House of Representatives.”
According to the News, another Republican, Rep. Mike Callton, had asserted, “’What she said was offensive. It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”
Women in Michigan and across the country were stunned by the news that the scientific name for a body part can be declared “offensive” by a state legislature — and
outraged but not surprised that the body part in question is a female one. Within days, Brown and Byrum struck back with a reading June 18 on the steps of the Michigan House in Lansing of playwright Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues>/em>; Ensler herself joined them for the performance, which gathered a large crowd of joyful spectators (youtu.be/ujmmCRueAow). The following day, former WIN editor Francesca Fiorentini released a new video on the subject in her Laugh to Not Cry series, entitled, simply, “vagina” (youtu.be/GtX4pkcHoj0). The video consists in large part of a recital of every known synonym and slang term for the body part in question, from baby-talk euphemisms to the one that still can’t be said on Tv. (even Francesca bleeped that one.)
The bill under discussion, by the way — House Bill 5711 — was tabled, although another restrictive bill was passed.
—Judith Mahoney Pasternak
MAYORS VS. NUKES
On June 16, at the close of its 80th annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted a strong, comprehensive New Mayors for Peace resolution calling for U.S. leadership in the global elimination of nuclear weapons and the redirection of nuclear weapons spending to meet the urgent needs of cities.
Citing the domestic economic crisis and the declaration by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at their conference last year that “the road to peace and progress runs through the world’s cities and towns,” the mayors resolved that the conference “reaffirms its call on the President of the United States to work with the leaders of the other nuclear-armed states to implement the U.N. Secretary-General’s Five-Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament forthwith, so that a Nuclear Weapons Convention or a comparable frame-work of mutually reinforcing legal instruments can be agreed upon and implemented by 2020, as urged by Mayors for Peace.”
The same resolution also called for the United States to withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from foreign soil, and for Congress to “terminate funding for modernization of nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and production facilities, to slash spending on nuclear weapons well below Cold War levels, and to redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities.”
For the complete text of the resolution, see www.wslfweb.org/docs/2012USCMres.pdf.
STEVE BEN ISRAEL: PACIFIST, ACTOR, PERFORMANCE ARTIST
Steve Ben Israel, legendary thespian, veteran of the ground-breaking Living Theatre troupe, and pioneer of what he called “performance life” (as opposed to performance art), died June 4 of lung cancer at his home in New York’s Greenwich Village. He was 74.
Born to a working-class Russian Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn, Israel gravitated to the village beatnik scene in the 1950s. He first acted in the Living Theatre’s controversial 1963 production The Brig, which chillingly depicted brutal conditions in a Marine Corps prison — and resulted in the theater being shut down, ostensibly over a tax issue. The troupe afterwards left New York for Europe, spending several years on the road, performing across the continent — as far east as Belgrade. Their ethic of breaking down the barrier between performers and audience reached its pinnacle in the 1968 production Paradise Now — often performed naked and high on acid. Israel frequently drove the troupe from city to city.
A 1971 tour of Brazil — then under a right-wing military dictatorship — was cut short when troupe members were arrested on a trumped-up marijuana charge and imprisoned. Israel just barely managed to escape the country, and back in New York worked to get his fellow performers released. The experience resulted in the Living Theater’s most harrowing work, Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism, a statement on human rights abuses then widespread under Latin America’s military regimes.
In the late ‘70s, Israel moved from acting to his own unique take on standing up comedy — politically themed, stream-of-consciousness, incorporating non-verbal sound effects, and (usually) cannabis-fueled. Under such Zen-like paradoxical names as “Nostalgia for the Future,” “Séances to Contact the Living,” and “Nonviolent Executions,” Israel offered humanistic observations on war, peace, and life in new York City, all through his characteristic anarchist pacifist lens. (Like many in the Living Theatre community, he was also a long-time friend of WRl.)
While Israel performed at benefits for countless left-wing causes, he turned down the opportunity for work in Hollywood and struggled economically in his final years. In 2007, the revived Living Theater unveiled a new production of The Brig for the age of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, and Israel was brought in as ensemble director — work for which he won an Obie Award from the Village Voice.
Israel was working on a collection of his poetry and performance sketches, which may be published posthumously.
There are also extensive interviews with Israel in Oliver Trager’s Dig Infinity!, a biography of Israel’s inspiration, beatnik comedian Lord Buckley. (A performance available at youtube/2tplfISg1o4 reflects Buckley’s influence.) He is also interviewed in the 2009 independent film Saint Misbehavin’, about his longtime friend Wavy Gravy.
Israel is survived by his wife Pamela Mayo Israel, also a veteran of the Living Theatre; their son Baba Israel, a hip hop artist; daughter-in-law Dawn Crandell, a dancer and performer; and new granddaughter Sequoia-Rose Hope Israel-Crandell.
—Bill Weinberg
Versions of this article appeared in the Villager June 7 and on the June 12 Global Ganja Report, globalganjareport.com.
INDIGENOUS BRAZILIANS OCCUPY DAM SITE
According to Al Jazeera, about 150 people from four Brazilian tribes have been occupying the site of a planned dam in the state of Parà, in northern Brazil, to demand that the government and the energy company creating the dam keep promises meant to ameliorate the impact of the dam on the tribespeople’s lives.
The Brazilian government and Norte Energia, the company in charge of what will be the third-largest hydroelectric dam in the world, have failed to keep commitments made to the tribespeople during negotiations a year ago, that included “the demarcation of indigenous lands, the construction of health facilities and schools, and means of transportation for the tribal people when the rivers dry up.”
After waiting a year for evidence that their part of the deal was under way, people of the four tribes took matters into their own hands and nonviolently invaded the building site, upon which the construction workers fled, leaving the tribespeople in possession of the site, the bulldozers, and other equipment.
“We would not be here today if the builders and the government would have done what they promised us,” a tribe elder told Al Jazeera.
The building site has already been the target of protests by local activists not affiliated with the tribespeople, some of whom are facing charges for alleged damage
to the property on the construction site.
A Brazilian federal judge has refused to order the tribespeople to be forcibly evicted from the site. At this writing, negotiations continue, and, surprisingly, Norte Energia is providing the occupiers with meals.
