text:
Madonnaunderground
Your #1 Madonna source
World Tours
Benefit Concerts
Album Promo
Various Releases
Interviews & More
Grammys 2014: Madonna to wear Ralph Lauren tuxedo
It's been a banner season for Ralph Lauren on the red carpet.
First he dressed fashion It girl Lupita Nyong'o at the Golden Globes and now he has a lock on Madonna for the Grammys.
Madonna will be wearing look 49 from the spring 2014 Ralph Lauren collection (above, left), a black cady double-breasted tuxedo jacket, matching wool pants and a white cotton shirt.
And ratcheting up the adorable factor, she will be joined at the ceremony by a mini-me. Her son David will be wearing a Ralph Lauren Boys tuxedo.
Of course, Madonna has never met a tuxedo she didn't love. She's been wearing the gender-bending look since her "Vogue"-ing days.
And back in June, the queen of pop made headlines when she attended a screening of her film, "Madonna: The MDNA Tour" in New York, wearing a Tom Ford tuxedo, top hat and tails, and channeling Marlene Dietrich.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/fashion/la-ar-madonna-to-wear-ralph-lauren-tuxedo-at-grammys-20140126,0,5131018.story#ixzz2rY7Qsfri
MADAME X TOUR
Mode Lifestyle Magazine (Jan 2020)
Madame X Paris After Show – tickets
MADAME X – BUY NOW
Confessions on a Dance Floor – discography (NEW)


Actress Jessica Biel has overtaken Brad Pitt as the most dangerous celebrity to search in cyberspace, according to 573 Internet security company McAfee. Biel was deemed the most dangerous, with fans having a one-in-five chance of landing at a website that has tested positive for online threats, such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, and viruses. Searching for Jessica Biel could instantly give your computer a virus, start sending every keystroke to Russian cybercriminals, upload your bank account information to China, and hijack your browser so that every image is replaced with this one (sfw). "Every day, cybercriminals use celebrities' names and images, like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna, to lure surfers searching for the latest stories, screen savers and ringtones to sites offering free downloads laden with malware.


text:
Honorable Steven R. Finney
Serving Carter, Johnson, Unicoi and Washington counties
Alma mater(s)
East Tennessee State University, 1985; University of Memphis Cecil Humphreys School of Law, 1989
Gen. Steve Finney began his career in private practice and then joined the First Judicial District Attorney's Office in 1991 as an Assistant District Attorney serving Carter County and later Washington County. In 2005,
Gen. Finney went into private practice in Washington County where he represented his clients for 17 years before deciding to return to the District Attorney General's Office. Gen. Finney was elected to his first term of service in 2022 where he serves the communities of Carter, Johnson, Unicoi and Washington counties.
Member of DNAA, TNDAGC Child Support Committee
Number and types of courts in your district:
6 General Sessions Courts, 8 Criminal Courts, 4 Circuit Courts, 4 Chancery Courts, 4 Juvenile Courts
Notable things about your district:
The 1st Judicial District has one Family Justice Center located in Johnson City that serves victims. In the past year, the District Attorney's Office appointed a criminal investigator to serve as the director of the Drug Task Force, as well as the appointment of a "special" prosecutor for the entire district solely dedicated to the prosecution of drug cases. This has been very successful in the conviction rates of drug offenders and yielded many convictions on the federal level. The 1st District also has prosecutors specializing in the prosecution of DUI and DUI-related offenses, as well as domestic violence offenses. One prosecutor is solely assigned to juvenile cases in Washington, Carter and Johnson counties.
There are many attributes that make the 1st Judicial District unique. Surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains, the famous Appalachian Trail meanders through three of the counties within the 1st Judicial District. Washington County is home to Jonesborough, Tennessee's oldest town. Jonesborough is also known for visitors such as Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson, David Crockett and John Sevier, just to name a few. Carter County is home to Sinking Creek Baptist Church, Tennessee's oldest church, and Sycamore Shoals State Park and Roan Mountain State Park.
Focuses:
When it comes to safety and prevention, Tennessee District Attorneys know the importance of being tough on crime. Learn more about what your DA does.
Jonesborough Criminal Office
Erwin Criminal Office
100 N. Main Ave.
Erwin, TN 37650
Mountain City Criminal Office
Mountain City, TN 37683
Elizabethton Criminal Office
1500 W. Elk Ave. Ste. 208
Elizabethton Child Support
Mountain City Child Support

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Heya Remote Pawel Bot Driver
============================

The Heya Remote Pawel Bot Driver is a sibling module for use with the [Remote Pawel Bot driver](https://github.com/bryan-m-hughes/heya#remote-pawel-bot) in Heya, a sumobot platform.

The remote driver allows the primary Heya instance to run on a different machine than the driver. For example, let's say you want to have a Raspberry Pi controlling motors, but a laptop generating the input, then you want to use this module.

Install with NPM:

```
npm install heya-remote-pawel-bot
```

## Remote Driver configuration

This is the code that runs on the Raspberry Pi, using the above example.

```JavaScript
var Raspi = require('raspi-io');

require('heya-remote-pawel-bot')({
  io: new Raspi(),
  leftServo: 'PWM0',
  rightServo: 'PWM1'
});
```

## Heya Configuration

This is the code that runs on the laptop, using the above example.

```JavaScript
var heya = require('heya');

heya.create({
  controller: new heya.controllers.WebKeyboard(),
  driver: new heya.drivers.RemotePawelBot({
    url: 'http://1.2.3.4:8000'
  })
});
```

License
=======

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Bryan Hughes bryan@theoreticalideations.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
FintechAM
Fintech A.M.: 5-12-17
As we are used to by now, blockchain- and cryptocurrency-related developments are continuously happening. Coinciding with these developments, governments are trying to come to grips with financial innovation.
Regulation required
In China, the government's financial regulators have assigned new laws to local governments. The new rules are aimed at the loosely regulated market for small, unsecured "cash loans", which can be distributed via smartphone apps. This is not surprising as these loans are often associated with overlending, repeat borrowing, improper collection, abnormally high interest rates and privacy violations.
Blockchain, blockchain, blockchain…
Over in the US, New York lawmaker Clyde Vanel sees a lot of potential in blockchain and has introduced four bills to stimulate blockchain research. The desired blockchain research is directed at improving government-related activities and determining the impact of cryptocurrencies on New York financial markets.
The financial technology company & global fund transaction network Calastone also believes in the power of blockchain, announcing plans to transition the company's technology to a private and permissioned blockchain infrastructure in 2019. This way, the company hopes to reduce costs and increase returns and transparency for investors.
Decentralized Cloud Computing Blockchain Network, ælf (originally known as Grid), envisions an important role for the fintech company. Co-founder and COO Zhuling Chen presented the company's desire to take on the role of a central hub for all blockchains, hence creating a foundation for new types of "cross-chain" enterprise applications.
…and cryptocurrencies
Recently, Cantor Fitzgerald, CME and Nasdaq announced the launch of bitcoin futures contracts. Today, however, options exchange company CBOE group stated to have received permission to start trading bitcoin futures on December 10 at 5PM CT. This gives the company a one-week head start to CME.
More news on cryptocurrencies as Venezuelan president Maduro announced the launch of a commodity reserves-backed cryptocurrency, in an attempt to help the country overcome a financial blockade. Opposition leaders express their disapproval, saying that the idea has no credibility.
By Michael Brooijmans, Research Analyst at Holland FinTech


C-re-aid is in the process of developing furniture prototypes, made exclusively using recycled bottle caps. The objectives of this project are two-fold. We aim to raise awareness of the chronic pollution effecting Zanzibar; with a reported 96,000 tonnes of waste material being dumped, uncontrolled, into the environment every year. We also wish to create a workshop space, where the local community have the platform to create an industry surrounding innovative recycling solutions.
We will begin by providing classroom furniture for our partner school in Nungwi.


text:
Evolution of our indie game Zero Reflex
Many may question why we decided to change the name and visuals for our indie game to Zero Reflex when it was already in soft launch on the App Store as ZeroReflex! Well, let's start from the very beginning. THE VERY BEGINNING The first version of the game was called The Reflexx 2. The name came [...]
wp_exord2017-06-08T13:34:49+00:00September 25th, 2015|Uncategorized|
Surviving your first game show – Gamescom 2015
Surviving your first game show might be an intimidating task. We have to admit that we were really happy with ours. So this year we went to Gamescom, our first international gaming convention! We went to talk to publishers, meet new indie developers and make contacts in the game industry on global level. We were in the [...]
We teamed up with Indiefferent Studio
Although it's been a while, we are happy to announce that a couple of months ago we teamed up with Indiefferent Studio to make Bear With Me come to life. Indiefferent is a small independent game development team also from Croatia made up of Hrvoje Maros and Andrej Kovacevic. They have been working on Bear With Me [...]
wp_exord2017-06-08T13:36:18+00:00September 4th, 2015|Studio|


This is where all overlay icons are defined, and it also defines the order they are applied. The problem is that Windows only uses the first few of them. To solve the issue we need to add 3 or 4 spaces in front of the tortoise keys so it will become first.Edit all the tortoise keys and add 3 spaces in front of the keys.
Newer Posts PowerShell script to Remotely Enable a Local administrator Account and set a password.


Staff at The New York Times were numb with horror as the terrible events of 11 September 2001 unfolded before them. But, as journalists, their reaction to the tradegy was allied to a strong instinct to do their job. Earlier this year the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) acknowledged their work by giving the paper a special award for its innovative 'A Nation Challenged' section – a supplement to the main paper that appeared daily from 18 September to 31 December 2001.


How long until the destruction caused by Katrina is all Bush's fault?
Discussion in 'Politics & World News' started by N8 v2.0, Aug 30, 2005.
I mean,come on, every brain dead liberal knows hurricanes are "W"'s fault since at least Oct 2004.
I think you are getting a little paranoid. Better check under your bed tonight, there might be a big scary evil liberal under there.
Yeah the tsuanmi was blamed on him too becasue of us "testing weapons in the oceans then".
I actually think it was N8's fault, and I have graph here to prove it.
Hasn't Galveston already learned the hard lesson of living in a city below sea level?
Personally, I blame freedom-hatin terrorists from Iran for the storm.
Hey, at least he isn't like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.
Anyone can see that's a guitar, not a fiddle.
There has been some discussion about the cut backs to the US Corp of Engineers, particularily the study about how to protect the city from a Category 5 hurricane. While the hurricane is an Act of God (hmm, maybe we can blame Bush), the damage to the city could have been minimized if the levee system was prepared for this kind of storm.
N8's questions begs the following question to be asked...how long until the Bush administration blames the Clinton administration for the hurricane.
i heard some talking head religious zealot today say that the hurricane is God's way of punishing the American people because we have turned our backs on God. And that there will be much more destruction to come.
I guess the bible belt is the first to get punished God must be saving the gays for last!!!!
Or maybe they've all been worshiping the wrong god!
His noodlie goodness is striking out at us. Repent and join the Pastafarians.


text:
Around 40 People Will Stand Trial Next Month For Shooting On NYE In Lebanon
Hussein Yassine·
PRI/Haitham Mussawi
Around 40 individuals will stand trial next month on charges of shooting on New Year's Eve.
Brig. Gen. Munir Shehadeh, the head of the Permanent Military Court, set a session on the first of February to try the detainees, the National News Agency reported on Thursday.
They will be tried in reference to Article 75 of the Lebanese Weapons Law, which states:
"Whoever fires in populated places or in a crowd, using a licensed or unlicensed weapon, shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine, or one of these two penalties, and the weapon is confiscated in all cases."
بعد تحديد هوية عدد من مطلقي النار، المجموعة الخاصة في وحدة الشرطة القضائية توقف 3 منهم احدهم كان يقوم بإطلاق النار في منطقة كاشفة لمطار رفيق الحريري الدولي#قوى_الامن #لبنانhttps://t.co/86AXZ1Izke pic.twitter.com/ATrueKQahh
— قوى الامن الداخلي (@LebISF) January 3, 2021
The Lebanese authorities took swift action against celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve a couple of weeks ago.
Despite the repeated warnings not to engage in the illegal, deadly act, accompanied by the freezing of civilian firearm licenses, prior to the event, many people across the country opened fire into the air as January 1st rolled around.
The heavy gunfire sent stray bullets flying down into cars, buildings, and even planes at Beirut Airport, causing material damage as well as injuries and a fatality.
In the following days, the Internal Security Forces cracked down on identified shooters and arrested them, urging citizens who have evidence against others who opened fire on New Year's Eve to submit it to help identify and arrest them.


text:
Hammarica.com Daily DJ Interview: Sean Tyas
Dec 2, 2012 sean tyas
New York native, Switzerland based DJ/Producer Sean Tyas is something of a leading light in European trance. Currently ranked #93 in DJ Magazine"s Top 100 DJ Poll 2012, he was also earmarked by BBC Radio 1″s Pete Tong as a "buzzword in trance circles" head of his debut Essential Mix for the station back in February 2009 and hooked by industry power house Beatport has a "One to watch."
It was in 2006 that Sean Tyas first started to make waves in the trance scene, winning the much hyped Spinnin' Records remix competition for his rework of Sander van Doorn 'Punk'd', and next signed to the Discover label. His first solo release for the label didn't disappoint either, with the energetic and euphoric 'Lift' being one of the biggest releases of 2006 and awarded Single Of The Week on Armin's A State Of Trance show as well as getting signed onto countless best selling compilations. Give a warm welcome to SEAN TYAS!
Where does your everlasting energy come from?
Haha! No idea. I'm a pretty upbeat and happy guy!
You are known for your pounding energetic trance sound, but still it is not exactly hard trance. Ever had the urge to experiment with a slightly harder sound like for instance the older Tracid Traxxx releases?
Never. They didn't age well very well did they? Honestly most of that stuff sounds like shit these days. In the last 5 years, production techniques have come so far.
You are a stronghold in the DJ Mag Top 100. Do you feel the competition got stronger this year?
I guess? See I really don't put much faith in the poll… Not when I see the names that have ghost writers in the top 100, because really now, this poll is now a production poll, not a DJ poll. You have James Zabiela, one of the world's BEST DJs, at spot 123, lower than me. That's wild…
What measures do you take to actively promote yourself, your releases and your career?
I just do my weekly show and keep things simple. I think this new business/industry model with the social media focus is actually pretty bad for the music itself.
Success doesn't last forever, especially for an artist. What do you do to save up for the future?
Don't know. Pretty scary I think! 🙂 We don't have pension plans and we damn well don't make any money from sales of music. Though I have some ideas that are far more preferable than the rat race that exists right now… We shall see.
Hiphop has had turntablism culture for many years. Do you feel EDM DJs should become a bit more creative with mixing on average?
Sure, why not? Could be a lot of fun! Look at the concept of mashups, it IS that, just done by people that need a sequencer to lock the two tracks perfectly.
Have you ever hurt yourself badly while DJing?
The standard slip on wet floor bit a few times. Nothing more than sprained ankles and face cuts. I'm clumsy by nature anyway.
In which city can we find your biggest fans?
In New York or Buenos Aires.
Drugs – yes or no? If yes, what is the best stuff?
What are drugs?
If you had to choose between a shitty party to play at with massive pay, or a superb party with no pay, which one would you pick? And give an example.
Now that really depends, I think I'd need even more details! See I am ALWAYS focused more on the studio side of things, so to think I can play this one gig and fund a new machine or synth or more, I'd take the shitty gig, take the money, and immediately put that into the studio! Sorry, my real love is THERE.
Share a production trick that is unique to you as an artist.
I sidechain pretty much everything. I can have 80+ channels and still have a sidechain compressor on everything.
Sure, forget genres. Forget what your friends tell you is hot. Decide for yourself. See through the hype, the media and the bullshit.
http://www.seantyasmusic.com
http://seantyas.spreadshirt.com
http://www.twitter.com/seantyas
http://www.facebook.com/seantyasmusic
IS THIS WHAT THE FUTURE WILL SOUND LIKE?
Hammarica.com Star Writer Kate O'Connell + B-Day = PARTYROCK
WATCH! EMOJII & NICKI GEE SHARE THEIR NEW COLLAB.. WITH YOU
Hammarica.com Daily DJ Interview: Solarstone
Hammarica.com Daily DJ Interview: Ferry Tayle


text:
Gary Johnson Speaks To The BBC Just Before Kick-Off Against Charlton
Yeovil Town manager Gary Johnson spoke to local journalist Chris Spittles, in an interview for BBC Somerset just before kick-off against Charlton on Tuesday 8th April 2014. Yeovil went on to lose 3-2.
CS: It's an unchanged team tonight, after Saturday's win. Was that an easy decision to make?
GJ: It's never an easy decision to make, because you're always wondering do people need a rest or a break? When a team has won a game, and they're footballers - and this group like to play football - they'd be really disappointed if I left them out. The only excuse would be to rest them, but they're footballers. We feel we've worked hard in preparation again. It's been about games and recovery. So we've given them enough recovery and that's what we hope anyway. Then we'll see which ones can handle the Saturday-Tuesday thing. But after you've had a win, it's very difficult to change it.
CS: What do you make of Charlton? I was looking at their recent home wins and they've beaten QPR here and Bournemouth here.
GJ: Yes, they've got a style of play, where the new fellow (Jose Riga) has come in - it's a possession-based game. It's a bit like the way Southampton and Swansea try to play, where the two full-backs bomb on and the two centre-backs split, whilst the midfielder comes in to receive the ball. We've come up against that quite a few times at this higher level, because at the higher level you've got players that are better. But we've handled it before and we've got to handle it today, because we're probably going to be doing the same against Bournemouth on Saturday. So this is obviously a very important game but it's going to be a dress rehearsal for Bournemouth as well.
CS: Have you allowed your players to look at the table in the build-up to this game? Obviously you're three points behind Charlton going into tonight's game.
GJ: You've got to look at the table. We actually put up a table before the last game (against Blackpool) of what might happen during the next two games. I think that hit it home to them. We had to win the next two games. Now they're seeing that table that we put up looking very much like the one we did (in advance of the Blackpool game) and we liked what we saw. But you've got to get a result today and see how the others have done, and then see exactly where we are. The lads have put us in this position where we are still fighting, and that's good with six games to go - and five after today.
This is a big six-pointer - of course it is. What do you do as a manager? - tell them that it's the be-all and end-all? - because it might not be. But at the same time you don't want to deaden the importance of it. So we sort of said that the bookies have made us favourites to go down - about 1/8 on, I think it is, and I think if we lose this game we'll end up about 1/20 on, and they aren't normally wrong. But if we win this game then you're probably going to be evens to stay up. So the bookies see it as an important game, and so we've got to.
Next Interview : 10/04/2014 : Gary Johnson Speaks To The BBC As Part Of The Build-Up To Bournemouth
Previous Interview : 08/04/2014 : Gary Johnson Speaks To The BBC After The 3-2 Defeat Against Charlton


Danish firms Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and Gottlieb Paludan Architects have won a competition to design the world's largest waste-to-energy power plant in China (+ movie).
Proposed for the mountainous region on the outskirts of Shenzhen, the waste-to-energy plant is expected to incinerate 5,000 tonnes of rubbish per day – approximately one third of the waste generated by the city's 20 million inhabitants each year.
According to the architects, the facility will "utilise the most advanced technology in waste incineration and power generation".
The huge circular building will boast a 66,000-square-metre roof, two thirds of which will be covered with photovoltaic panels, allowing the building to generate its own sustainable supply of energy.
It will also feature a series of visitor facilities, including a looping walkway that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the plant, before leading up to a rooftop viewing platform.
"The project firstly aims to provide a clean, simple and modern technical facility to deal with the city's growing waste," explained architect Chris Hardie, head of Schmidt Hammer Lassen's Shanghai office.
"At the same time it aims to educate visitors to this growing waste challenge by taking them on an elevated walkway tour of the plant that ends with a 1.5-kilometre panoramic view of both the surrounding mountains and the 66,000-square-metre roofscape that will be geared to producing actual renewable energy," he told Dezeen.
The circular structure will encompass the entire plant, including auxiliary buildings – the aim was to keep the facility as compact as possible.
The entrance will be a snaking ramp that starts from a landscaped park and winds up between a pair of smokestacks.
The Shenzhen East Waste-to-Energy Plant is scheduled to be operational by 2020. Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Gottlieb Paludan were selected ahead of five other teams including Arup and AECOM.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen is currently working on a number of projects in China, including a major new cultural quarter for Shanghai and the redevelopment of the 2010 Shanghai Expo site.
Gottlieb Paludan is a specialist in industrial architecture. Projects include a series of brick-built substations, cooling plants and waterworks across Denmark and a biomass-fired heating and energy plant in Copenhagen.
Other Danish firms involved in this sector of architecture include Bjarke Ingels' studio BIG, which is building a combined power plant and ski slope in Copenhagen, which will blow smoke rings.
Visualisations are by Beauty & the Bit and Ginsun. Models are by JR Models.


This is the main station of the capital of Belgium, Brussel.
Passenger trains, High speed (ICE & Thalys), and Eurostar. Freight is limited, but can pass by sometimes.
It is a big station with 22 platforms, and is a quite safe place, but watch out for pick-pockets.
Take the exit towards Centre / Centre from the E40.
Take the R20 to the Avenue Fonsny / N265 in Saint-Gille.
There are parking places in the area but they are expensive.
You can reach Brussel Zuid from all direction in Belgium and from the Netherlands, Germany,Luxembourg, England.
There are toilets are available (50 euro cents), restaurants, coffee shops, and there is also a supermarket.
From platform 4 through to 21 you can take pictures in several directions. North side in the morning, south side mainly in the afternoon.


Viewing articles 161 to 200 of 506 total.
Trocaire College is pleased to announce its new Brewing, Distilling and Fermentation Science program, officially launching its first course on Sept. 20 under the Workforce Development arm of the college.
EAST AURORA - The annual fall campaign for Christ the King Seminary will be held in September throughout the Diocese of Buffalo, with a goal of $350,000. President-Rector Father Joseph Gatto said funds raised will help support the seminary's mission to educate sponsored candidates for the priesthood, as well as permanent deacons, and religious and lay ministers enrolled in graduate programs. The campaign will also help focus attention on the many activities that take place at the seminary year-round.
St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute is pleased to announce that its annual open house for prospective students and their families will take place on Sunday, October 1 from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Monday, October 2 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Prospective students, currently in grades 5 through 8, and their families are welcome. No reservations are necessary.
Mount St. Mary Academy represented the United States in an international business competition this summer. Two teams from the Kenmore school's SAGE program went up against school-based businesses from 26 different countries as part of the SAGE World Cup. Both teams, representing for-profit and not-for-profit businesses took home fourth place awards.
NIAGARA FALLS — This year, students at Niagara Catholic Jr./Sr. High School will be learning about the many ways the world, and their own school, have changed since 1927. It's a creative way to mark how four different schools spanned nine decades of Catholic education on 66th Street.
After greeting students as they stepped off of school buses on Main Street in Buffalo Wednesday, Bishop Richard J. Malone went inside and joined some of them in a drum session on the first day of classes at St. Joseph University School.
As we begin the 2017-2018 school year, there is much to applaud. Our 2017 graduates garnered almost $4 million in high school scholarships, and our high school graduates secured over $300 million in college awards. We expect no less of the Class of 2018.
TONAWANDA — Thomas Wilkie and Tim Adowski, Cardinal O'Hara High School class of 2010, returned to the school earlier this year to demonstrate Storillo, an online program that facilitates student collaboration on group projects, which they developed.
KENMORE — St. John the Baptist School recently dedicated the Elaine Cambria Memorial Signpost in honor of a beloved teacher who spent most of her 37-year career teaching kindergarten at the school and passed away earlier this year. Faculty and students presented the dedication in conjunction with the annual kindergarten play, a tradition that Cambria had initiated decades ago. Her son John and granddaughter Hannah represented the family at the ceremony.
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY — Niagara University has announced that it will participate in New York state's Enhanced Tuition Award program, the tuition assistance program for private colleges and university students available under the state's Excelsior Scholarship legislation.
Villa Maria College has begun construction to expand its existing athletic facilities.
WASHINGTON, DC (CNA/EWTN News) - Parochial schools are better at their task than public schools, say respondents to a survey of Americans' attitudes towards varieties of schooling.
Niagara University will welcome its freshmen and transfer students to campus during Move-In Day on Friday, Aug. 25, beginning at 8 a.m.
ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2017 — Students who are new to the Bona family will begin arriving at St. Bonaventure University Aug. 24 for Welcome Days 2017, a four-day program hosted the weekend before classes begin.
The Buffalo Diocese' STREAM program has proven to be a model of education for the nation. Representatives from Buffalo led a two-day conference to teach other educators how to make the tech program work in their schools. Jean Comer, diocesan STREAM coordinator, and Shelly Reidy, diocesan professional development coordinator, traveled to Chicago's Loyola University to explain and demonstrate how to deliver the principles of STREAM education to the classrooms, school or diocese.
St. Gregory the Great Parish & School is excited to welcome Mrs. Julie Gajewski as the new School Principal. Mrs. Gajewski joins St. Gregory's after serving as Principal of the Intermediate Education Center, a school that serves Grades 3-5 in the Lewiston-Porter Central School District.
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY — A new research grant will allow a Niagara University senior to determine why Niagara Falls may lag behind comparable stateside tourist destinations when it comes to eradicating poverty and growing its tourism economy.
A family from Congo, Africa received many helping hands from the students, parents, and faculty of St. John the Baptist School in Kenmore. Under the guidance of James Werick, the school's Dean of Discipline, students collected furniture, household items, clothing, and food to help settle the family of four. "Our students performed a wonderful act of kindness for a young family who has nothing and is fleeing unimaginable hardship, desperately seeking a new life in our country," states Werick. "This project helped in a very substantial way—working to create a welcoming home for our family."
Canisius College hosted a weeklong immersion experience for high school students to expose them to the wonders of faith and tragedies of injustice in the city of Buffalo. The Be the Light Youth Theology Institute welcomed 10 students from July 10-15.
KENMORE — The Briana Talty Memorial Scholarship was recently awarded at St. John the Baptist School in honor of Briana Talty, the school's Spanish teacher, who passed away earlier this year. Families and friends of both St. John's and Talty established a memorial scholarship to honor the beloved teacher. Talty's parents and members of her family joined St. John the Baptist's principal, Cynthia Jacobs, at the ceremony to present the scholarship awards to the recipients, eighth-grader Alyssa Barnum and seventh-grader Colin Richey.
For 70 years, Mary Queen of Angels Regional Catholic School served Cheektowaga and surrounding municipalities of Western New York, most of this time under its former name, Queen of Martyrs School. However, as the 2016-17 school year came to a close, the MQA community recognized the end of its era with a special field day of activities on June 2 and a Mass celebrating the school's history on June 21.
Niagara University has announced that it will participate in New York State's Enhanced Tuition Award (ETA) program, the tuition assistance program for private colleges and university students available under the state's Excelsior Scholarship legislation.
As part of its participation in the diocesan STREAM initiative at local Catholic schools, St. Mary School in Swormville recently opted to take STREAM, usually an acronym standing for science, technology, religion, engineering, art and mathematics, literally. Polly Lougen's third-, fourth- and fifth-grade science classes hatched and raised brown trout eggs and fry (baby fish) in the school's science lab, which the Department of Environmental Conservation later released in Glen Park's Ellicott Creek in Williamsville.
William Mariani, Ed.D., D'Youville College's executive vice president, Administrative Affairs, died following a brief illness Sunday, June 25, at Gates Vascular Institute in Buffalo. He was 67.
Southtowns Catholic School of St. John Paul II Parish, Lake View, is pleased to announce the hiring of Marc Bandelian as its new principal effective July 5, 2017. Bandelian is replacing Mrs. Judith MacDonald who is retiring this summer after serving as principal for the last fifteen years.
LEWISTON, NY - Under a clear blue, nearly-summer sky on Monday morning, students at St. Peter R.C. School broke ground for what will be the school's new playground. One student per grade was selected via a lottery to participate in the actual digging, each donning a matching shovel and hard hat. Construction of the playground will begin over the summer and means students should have a dedicated space for outdoor learning, active play, team sports and physical activity by the first week of the next school year.
Thomas Merton may have been the most influential American Catholic author of the 20th century, and some of his most spiritually formative years were spent at St. Bonaventure University. It seems only fitting that the scenic university in Cattaraugus County will host the 15th general meeting and conference for the International Thomas Merton Society from June 15-18.
TONAWANDA — The 2017 Ken-Ton Friends of Youth Shining Stars Dinner, held April 26 at the Tonawanda Castle, awarded grants to seven deserving college-bound high school seniors.
KENMORE — St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute's Collegiate Summer is back. The popular summer program held annually is open for registration. This four-week summer program is designed to help young men prepare for high school and have some fun.
It seems evident that Catholic schools are a viable, hopeful alternative to other kinds of schools in our community. But, over the years, it has become increasingly important to point out a significant fact about them. Catholic schools enroll a diverse population of rich, poor, black, white, Catholic, non-Catholic, smart and not-so-smart students.
You could call the former Bishop Fallon High School "the school that keeps on giving." Even though it has been closed since 1975, its Alumni Association has managed to raise nearly $100,000 for Catholic education over the past 13 years through an annual golf tournament. This year, that tournament is scheduled for Monday, June 19 at Lancaster Country Club.
He's the superintendent of Buffalo Public Schools, but Dr. Kriner Cash spent some time touring Catholic Academy of West Buffalo on Tuesday, May 23. It was an idea inspired months ago during a conversation between Dr. Cash and Bishop Richard J. Malone.
Canisius High School announces the purchase of the Conners mansion at 1140 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, directly across West Ferry Street from the Canisius campus. The newly-acquired 13,000 square foot facility was originally constructed as a private residence and recently served as a clubhouse for Gilda's Club of Western New York.
Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Buffalo will be in a better position to help students make healthier choices thanks to a $60,000 grant from Fidelis Care, a not for profit, faith based health insurance company. "They have been most generous," said Sister Carol Cimino, superintendent of Catholic Schools. "What we're trying to do with this particular grant is to change lifestyles and choices that children make."


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What About Peace?
"We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Marxism, Psychiatry, and Capitalism
This is the transcript of a recent email interview I did with Dr. Bruce M. Z. Cohen, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland and author of Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), where we discuss capitalism, psychiatry, and view psychiatry under a Marxist lens.
1. What made you want to apply a specifically Marxist view to psychiatry and psychology? Are you personally a Marxist and how did you come to be one?
That's a good question. I didn't expect to ever be writing such a book, but thanks to my students I realised that someone had to take responsibility for filling a current gap in the literature. I run a postgraduate course on the Sociology of Mental Health, in which my students complete project essays on topics of their own choosing. As it is a sociology course, they are obviously required to apply different theoretical approaches to their chosen issue. I always encourage the students to consider the wide range of theoretical approaches available to them including structural functionalism, labeling, social constructionism, Foucauldian, critical feminist and race theory, as well as Marxist scholarship. Regarding the later, my students complained that they couldn't find anything much out there. As a lecturer, I am always a little skeptical of such claims, but –hats off to my students!– they were correct on this occasion. With all the literature on mental health and illness currently in circulation, I found it astounding that there was no standard Marxist account available. Hence, the main reason for writing Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness.
To answer the second part of your question, yes I am a Marxist! Though I grew up in a very conservative –large as well as small 'c'– part of England in the 1980s, my parents were members of the CPGB (Communist Party of Great Britain). (In fact, my mother became the first communist parish councilor in the area, kicking out a Tory in the process). So I was politically conscious and politically active from a young age thanks to my family, imbued with a strong sense of social justice, and particularly incensed by Thatcher's attacks on the trade unions and the working classes at the time (which most people in my area thought was just fantastic!). But I think being a sociologist has really made me a fully committed Marxist; whichever area you are studying or working in, be it religion, education, health, crime, the family, or whatever, it doesn't take long to uncover evidence that the needs of capital determine the priorities of these institutions– they reproduce inequalities, oppress the majority of the population, and produce surplus value for a privileged minority. Is this a kind of society that, in good conscience, I or any sociologist can accept or support? Of course not! That's why I'm a Marxist. Human beings can do better.
2. Discuss the connection between psychiatry, psychology, education, and capitalism and how the former institutions have been influenced by the latter, historically speaking.
Following my point above, the mental health system (I use this as an umbrella term here to bring together psychiatry, psychology, and the various support professions and agencies working in the area of mental health including therapists, counselors, psychiatric nurses, and social workers) and the education system in their contemporary forms are both products of industrial capitalism. Briefly, compulsory schooling developed across western societies in the nineteenth century due to the needs of capital for higher skilled workers as well as to socially control working class youth (through, for example, socializing them into the norms and values of capitalism as the only "correct" way to think and understand the world). As I discuss in my book, the mental health system develops during the same period as another institution of social control: the asylums separate the able from the non-able bodied, it pathologises and confines problematic populations (primarily working class groups).
In neoliberal society, I argue that the connections between the mental health system and the education system (as well as many other areas of public and private life) have become much stronger and more explicit. For example, my socio-historical case study of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the book demonstrates that the origins of the diagnosis began with psychologists' concern for deviant working class youth who failed to "adapt" to the demands of compulsory schooling. A hundred years later, we can still see in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) that the symptoms of ADHD have nothing to do with having a mental illness but rather denote the requirements for more productive and efficient students and workers (for instance, forgetting or losing homework, failing to complete assigned tasks, poor time-management, and so on). As the demands on young people to stay on at school and go further in education have increased, so we have seen an increase in mental health experts in this area, and thus the increasing medicalization of "at risk" (I would argue, non-conforming) children. The expansion in the use of diagnoses such as autism and "oppositional defiant disorder" by psychiatry can also be theorized as serving a similar purpose here.
3. In what way does capitalism utilize psychiatry and psychology to demonize and ridicule those who have politics that don't fit with the status quo? (This has been talked about somewhat before and I would be interested in hearing you expand upon it.)
I devote a chapter to this issue in my book, but to be honest I think a whole monograph is required on the subject. It's a fascinating (and, as you do the research, shocking) issue. I can follow many other scholars by reiterating that the mental health system is highly effective in neutralizing threats through pathologising political and social dissent. I think it's more effective than say the criminal justice system because the courts are usually questioning the legality of the person's actions alone, rather than the rationality or sanity on those actions. Imprisonment of a protester, for instance, does not fundamentally undermine his or her actions or beliefs in the same way as being labeled as mentally sick does.
There are many examples of this process in operation. In the late nineteenth century, the suffragette movement was a frequent target for the "hysteria" label. During the civil rights movement in the US, there was a significant increase in the labeling of young Black men with "schizophrenia" (psychiatrists sometimes referred to this as "the protest psychosis"). Similarly, young African-Caribbean protesters in the deprived inner cities of 1980s Britain were theorized by psychiatrists as prone to "cannabis psychosis." As I mention in the book, I think an increasingly popular diagnosis which the mental health system is utilizing to pathologize those involved in civil disobedience or political violence today is antisocial personality disorder (APD): post-9/11, you can see that psychiatry is taking a much greater interest in medicalising any behavior which breaks the legal or moral status quo within capitalist society, particularly acts which involve perceived or actual violence.
4. How is psychiatry not an actual science in some ways? May people assume it is just by virtue of its utilization of 'experts' and 'quantitative studies'?
This is really at the heart of the matter. To be considered as a valid branch of medicine, psychiatry has to reach the medical "gold standard," which is to observe and identify real pathology on the body. And, though they're tried repeatedly to do this, so far psychiatry has failed in this fundamental goal. Most recently, for example, the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) DSM committee (which was responsible for producing the DSM-5) came to the following conclusion: the causation of mental disease remains unknown (for example, there is no useful biological marker or genetic test that has been identified) and psychiatrists still cannot distinguish between mentally healthy and mentally sick people. And of course without accurate identification of disease, a medical discipline cannot claim proof of causation or evidence of successful treatment, and they certainly cannot predict future cases of that disease.
So, to answer your question, no psychiatry is not a valid medical science. However, I argue in the book that progressing knowledge on madness (if such a thing is even possible) was not the reason for the establishment of the psychiatric profession or the continuation and expansion of the mental health system today. Rather, it's a discipline that has supported capitalism, both in the pursuit of surplus value as well as being an institution of ideological control, responsible for reinforcing the norms and values of this society and punishing deviations from them.
5. In what ways does this massive increase in the labeling of people having psychological disorders affect us on a personal, familial, and community level? How does this increase the alienation from ourselves and our larger communities that has been going on for some time now?
The biggest issue is that it individualizes what are fundamentally social and political issues in this society. This obviously suits capitalism, it follows a neoliberal ideology that you need to work on yourself and look nowhere else for solutions to your problems. As I argue in the book, this is why the psychiatric discourse has been allowed to become all-encompassing (effectively "hegemonic") over the last few decades; it has become highly useful in de-politicizing the oppressive reality of our lives. The involvement of the mental health system here is only one factor in the bigger issue though, which is of course the way the neoliberal project has attempted to destroy the social and the collective.
6. What are the negative aspects of self-diagnosing and how does that reinforce the status quo?
As with Marx's famous comments on religion as the opium of the people, I think we can understand self-labeling and people desiring to have such a label as a way of coping with the alienating tendencies of capitalism. It's no solution to the fundamental issues they have, but it can be a means of survival and maybe a limited form of "emancipation" at times. For example, the parents of a child who is underperforming in school may desire a mental illness diagnosis so that they can claim extra funding for study assistance, or someone who doesn't enjoy socializing in large groups may seek a psychiatric diagnosis so that they can legitimately take antidepressants which dull their inhibitions.
There are a number of significant problems with self-labeling: most obviously, you cannot solve the social and political problems of capitalism with a mental illness label or by being subjected to talk therapy, drugs, or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It can obviously be dangerous to your health (for example, long-term users of antidepressants tend to die at a considerably younger age than non-users), and it can be stigmatizing. Further, it falsely legitimates the mental health system as a valid medical enterprise.
7. How do you see the working class overcoming this system?
Ultimately it's a case of abolishing the mental health system and all its supporting apparatus. As with the criminal justice system, this is not an institution that has ever functioned in the interests of the working classes. At the end of my book I suggest a few practical things that can be done immediately to challenge and weaken the power of the mental health experts, these include: campaigning to remove psychiatry's compulsory powers to confine and drug people against their will, withdrawing their prescription rights, and outlawing ECT. I also think it is crucial to form closer alliances between academics, left wing activists, community groups, and progressive psychiatric survivor organizations to build a strong abolitionist alliance against the psychiatric system.
8. Tell us about your upcoming book and where you and others argue that "the best form of treatment for mental disorder is no treatment at all, and the causation of mental illness itself has yet to be established." It would be great to hear about those last two parts in-depth.
Well, I've hopefully addressed those two specific issues previously in this interview – what passes for "treatment" at the hands of the mental health system is, ironically, very bad for your physical and emotional health. Perhaps that is unsurprising given that mental disorders are fabrications produced by psychiatry without real evidence for their existence.
The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health (due out later this year) is an edited collection of original contributions from colleagues in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, which systematically problematizes the practices, priorities, and knowledge base of the western system of mental health. Basically, I have constructed a comprehensive resource manual which offers a variety of ways in which to theorize the business of mental health as a social, economic, political, and cultural project. So, for instance, the book provides updates on critical theories of mental health such as labeling, social constructionism, antipsychiatry, Foucauldian, Marxist, critical feminist, race and queer theory, critical realism, critical cultural theory, and mad studies. But it also demonstrates the application of such theoretical ideas and scholarship to key topics such as medicalization and pharmaceuticalisation, the DSM, global psychiatry, critical histories of mental health, and talk therapy. I'm very pleased at how it has turned out.
9. Is there a way to bring back a form of alternative psychiatry or psychology at all?
Some scholars are positive about the development of a post-revolutionary "Marxist psychology" or similar. I don't think that's possible, and I worry about giving these professions any sort of way out. My analysis points to these professions as agents of social control; they have always been responsible for policing the population not for emancipating them. So my answer to that question is an emphatic "no!"
Bruce M.Z. Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His other books include Mental Health User Narratives: New Perspectives on Illness and Recovery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Being Cultural (Pearson, 2012).
Posted by Devon DB at 12:32 PM No comments:
Labels: History, Interview, Philosophy/Theory
Anarchism, Paganism, and Resistance
By Brenan Daniels
Below is a recent interview I had with Rhyd, the editor of the website Gods & Radicals, where we discuss the origins of the organization, paganism, and religion in anarchism.
1. What led to the creation and found of Gods and Radicals? How did the entire group get together?
Gods & Radicals was started by myself and my friend Alley Valkyrie two years ago. We're both anarchists, the self-educated 'street-variety' as it were, living much of our lives working with homeless and other mostly-invisible victims of capitalism. And we also talked to other mostly-invisible things, like trees and dead people and land spirits and gods. So we were the self-educated street-variety of Pagans, too.
For us, our anti-capitalism and our Paganism seem to flow into each other seamlessly. Our desire to protect the natural world and our desire to protect the vulnerable were both rooted in the same soil. And we knew lots of other Pagans who were also anarchists, and lots of other anarchists who were also Pagans, but noticed that few were ever talking about what seemed pretty self-evident to all us. Because of the overwhelming response we got after a presentation together at a Pagan conference in California, we realized there was massive desire to talk more about this. So we started the site, named it after the presentation we gave, and put out a call for writers, and we got flooded pretty quickly with offers to help. It was pretty amazing.
2. Tell us about the journal A Beautiful Resistance. What led to its founding and what is the goal of the journal?
Gods & Radicals is both a website and a non-profit publisher, and A Beautiful Resistance is one of our publications. The idea behind the name is pretty simple: we tend to forget what we're resisting for in the midst of all thing things we're resisting against. Resistance can be ugly, exhausting, full of sorrow and misery and pain. It can also be beautiful, and should be, because we're not just struggling against capitalism, against patriarchy, against racism, and against authority. Instead, we're resisting for something, for ideas and for people and for ways of being that are beautiful.
Also, we wanted to challenge an unchallenged idea in both anarchist and Pagan publishing: we wanted to pay all our writers, to re-establish writing and art as labor that must be compensated. With A Beautiful Resistance and our other publications, we split all the revenue after costs 50% with all the contributors, with the other half going back into the organization to start new publishing projects. We've been pretty successful so far on this.
3. How did you personally come to paganism and what exactly is paganism as it doesn't seem to be well understood in the general culture?
I can't and won't define Paganism for everyone, but I'll happily tell you how I define it for myself.
Paganism is the moment I lose my words at the sight of wildflowers breaking through sidewalk cracks in the poor areas of a city; the resurgence of the wild into the disciplined misery of the oppressed. It's the body that doesn't fit into the machine, the dream of buried rivers and streams under pavement. It's the tears I shed and the rage I feel when I see a river poisoned by an oil spill or see a mountain blown to bits to get at the coal underneath.
For me, it's all about relation to not just the human-world but the other-than-human world. The mountain that gets blown apart so industrialized capitalism can grind on, the river that gets poisoned so people can have cars—I'm in relationship with them. Just like when a trans friend is harassed or a Muslim neighbor is terrorized, I cannot stand by and accept that violence, because we are related, we relate to each other, and our existence is all bound up together.
I've always been like this, I think, but I didn't always identify the way I relate with the world as "Pagan." Animism and witchcraft also describe it just as well. The words matter less to me than the worlds of meaning they attempt to describe.
4. Many anarchists reject any religion, especially organized religion. How do you square your anarchist political beliefs with your paganism?
I've always wanted to answer this question. More often than not, the question I am asked is how I square my pagan beliefs with generally atheistic anarchist political theory.
First off, I—and Gods & Radicals—strongly rejects clericalism. Anyone who sets themselves up as a mediator between humans and the world is trying to control people. In fact, most of our political systems derive from earlier religious-authority forms, evolving from priestly-control of society to king- or politician-control with the advent of monotheism. What both secular Liberal Democracy and theocratic empires have in common is authority: that others (priests, kings, politicians, bosses) can and do have the authority to define the world for you. We reject that in all its forms.
Traditionally, atheist anarchism and Marxism make the mistake of defining non-European, non-white, and indigenous spiritualities as 'superstitious' or even primitive. Post-colonialists like Dipesh Chakrabarty have helped unravel that as European exceptionalism, the continued notion that mostly-white leftists are somehow more superior in their atheist views because they've progressed past religion. They're enlightened, the rest of the world is not, and all that.
So I see the insistence that leftists must always be atheists to be little more than that same European exceptionalism that led to colonial suppression of indigenous beliefs in the Americas and Africa. Re-embracing our own spiritual existences—and our ability to create new ways of being outside Capital and the state—is a key to our own liberation and also ongoing anti-colonialist efforts around the world. Otherwise, we're no different from the French in Haiti who tried to suppress indigenous African beliefs so the Blacks would make better slaves, or the Spanish and English who tried to wipe out First Nation's beliefs to 'civilize' them.
To use an anarchist term, we're expropriating our meaning back, or in Marxist terms, we're seizing the means of the "production" of meaning.
5. In what way does Gods and Radicals create and change the narrative surrounding paganism, as a religious belief, and anarchism as a political belief? What are the unique/new ideas or ways of thinking that G&R brings to the table?
Our primary influence has thus far been within Paganism, and it's also where we get the majority of our critics. There are racist elements in American Paganism particularly that don't like us. Also, our anti-clerical stance has made us a few enemies with the plastic-shaman, media-hungry elements that see us as a threat to their greed. And we've helped expose a few charlatans and leaders sympathetic to fascism and the alt-right. So, lots of enemies, but even more friends: we get emails weekly from people who thought they were maybe the only Pagan anarchists around. I like those emails a lot.
I think the way we change the anarchist narrative is precisely in what I mentioned earlier: we are undermining the European exceptionalism that crept into anarchism, and reminding people we can all create our own meaning.
One thinks of the way anti-Enclosure resistance movements in England and Wales adopted Pagan language and mysticism in their resistance: the Luddites, for instance, claimed to be led by a ghostly 'captain' who lived under a hill in a forest. That's a land spirit. Likewise, the Whiteboys in Ireland gave eviction notices to landlords in the name of an ancient land-goddess, and the Rebeccas claimed to have gotten their costumes from an ancient crone in the mountains. The narrative of those resistance movements is remarkably similar to the spiritual stories of indigenous and slave resistance in the Americas. Likewise, the ritual to Erzuli Dantor at Bois Cayman which sparked the Haitian Revolution, or the women's resistance to factory owners in Cambodia through possession by land spirits call the Neak Ta—resistance to oppression has very often been spiritual as well as physical.
By telling those stories, and by telling our own, we open up more space for these kinds of resistances, and also challenge the insistence that European-secular atheism is the natural, final evolution of humanity.
Such a view also helps us navigate away from the appropriative nature of Western spirituality. The capitalist creation of whiteness stripped people of their relationship to land and culture. "Hurt people hurt people," as they say, and that whiteness manifests now in a voracious theft of the culture and spiritual expressions of others. Dismantling that whiteness and healing the damage that was done (and that it does) will require creating new relationships to land and culture in which everyone engages in their own meaning-making.
Also, we're trying to provide a bulwark against the alt/new/fascist right. They gain power significantly by playing to that lost sense of meaning; they've been able to make so much headway on this precisely because many leftists demean spiritual expression. We're trying to fix that.
6. How can people support G&R and are there orgs/groups that G&R is allied with?
A few ways. First, we are always excited to meet new writers and artists. We pay for writing on our site now, and welcome as many diverse voices as want to write with us. Secondly, we are a non-profit and accept donations to help us pay our writers. Buying our books helps a lot as well—that's how we pay our print writers. And sharing our stuff, of course, is always really helpful, especially now that most social media sites throttle views in order to get their users to buy advertising.
Other groups that we work with but aren't affiliated with directly, groups that might be of great interest to others, are Heathens United Against Racism and Appalachian Pagan Ministry, both of which are doing a lot of work to fight fascist organizing within Heathenry. And we have great relationships with quite a few Pagan communities elsewhere in the world fighting these same struggles, particularly against fascists.
Posted by Devon DB at 1:19 PM No comments:
Labels: Interview, Philosophy/Theory
The Chasm: State Socialists and Anarchists
Below is an interview I had with both Tom Wetzel and two members of the Facebook page Anarchist Memes discussing the history between state socialists and anarchists, with the above individuals representing an anarchistic view of the situation. Part 2 will discuss the same idea from the view of state socialists.
It is well known that there was a split between Marxists and anarchists at the First International. However, how were relations between Marxists and anarchists before the split and how did this split affect relations generally speaking?
JA: Despite the first international or the Hague conference a decade later or even Krondstadt, the attack on Makhno's forces or the '37 may-fighting in Spain...I think the overall tone and relationship between anarchists and Marxists has been one of comradery and socialist kinship.
That said, I think that anarchists are well aware of the fact that Marxism is not homogeneous - not least because anarchists (in my observation) tend to have been Marxists first before adopting anarchism. The tendency is not to hold all of Marxism responsible for the opinions and actions of "tankies". We are aware that the POUM fought with the CNT in the aforementioned may-days, we are aware of the Pannekoeks', Luxemburgs and Lukacs's within Marxism and hold these people and Marxists like them in high-esteem.
OM: I would generally say, that as soon as these two tendency formed from early Socialism, there were elements of both hostility and cooperation. The problem is that, historically, there has been a tendency by some Marxist currents (Leninism and its Maoist/Stalinist derivatives) to prefer a reactionary victory over the victory of a competing leftist tendency in any given conflict. With other tendencies of Marxism though, like Left or Council Communism, the relationship was much more harmonious and cooperative, as mentioned by [JA]. Today, both of these histories seem to inform Marxist-Anarchist relationships in varying measure, while I see the current resurgence of ultra-authoritarian Marxist tendencies seen among young activists today as a problem.
Wetzel: The label anarchism wasn't really used by the libertarian socialists in the International Workingmen's Association. Bakunin referred to his politics as "revolutionary socialism." The main disagreement was over Marx's advocacy of building labor political parties "to win the battle of democracy" (as he put it) through gaining government power. This was the beginning of the party-based strategy that has always been central to Marxism.
The libertarian socialists put the emphasis on building mass union organizations, and their potentially revolutionary role. Thus, the libertarian socialists in the first international were in many ways precursors of the type of revolutionary strategy that was called syndicalism in the early 20th century. Marx's statement "The emancipation of the working class is the work of the workers themselves" was strongly endorsed by the syndicalist militants of the 20th century. Libertarian socialists have been influenced as well by Marx's analysis of how capitalism works.
In the US, it is known that anarchists and state socialists supported labor in their fight against capital, but how close was the relationship between the two groups at this time?
JA: The relationship between anarchists and Marxists in the United States has been overwhelming close, intertwined, and copacetic. Marxists and anarchists in the late 19th century and early 20th century shared common-causes and worked closely with one another - often co-mingling in abstractly socialist organizations like the knights of labor or the IWW (which is still welcoming to both anarchists and Marxists alike) and/or coming out to protest/agitate/strike etc. in defense of workers, marginalized, or imprisoned and/or executed Marxist/anarchist comrades.
OM: Not being from the US, I can add little to the situation there. In Germany, many radical leftists ID only as vaguely "radical left" without identifying fully with either Marxism or Anarchism, though.
Wetzel: In the period from early 1900s to World War 1, the growing revolutionary syndicalist movement of that era was influenced by both Marxist and anarchist ideas. There were a number of cases where Marxist and anarchist groups cooperated in building highly democratic worker organizations. In the IWW in the USA Marxists associated with the left wing of the Socialist Party cooperated with anarcho-syndicalists like Jack Walsh and Carlo Tresca. The important factory council movement in Turin Italy in 1919-20 was developed as a joint project of Antonio Gramsci's Socialist Party group and the Turin Libertarian Group. This was an independent shop stewards council movement based on stop work assemblies in Fiat and other factories. The councils were developed independently of the bureaucracy of the CGL (Socialist Party trade union).
This Marxist-syndicalist alliance was broken with the development of the Communist International in the early '20s. The Leninist parties insisted on working towards party hegemony in labor movements. Although the American Communist Party continued to adapt and use many syndicalist tactics and ideas in their organizing in the '20s and early '30s (such as elected negotiating committees, agitation around the flat incompatibility of working class and employing class interests), they were not opposed to top-down forms of labor organization in their ideology, and this became obvious after the turn of the Communist Parties to the Popular Front approach in 1936.
Talk about the situation between anarchists during World War 1 as it doesn't seem that that is too much discussed.
JA: WWI for anarchists was marked by controversy, activity, and suppression. Throughout Europe and the US, anti-war anarchists were incarcerated en-mass and hounded endlessly. Pushed further underground, many escalated their militancy (i.e. Galleaninists in the US who actively bombed targets and assassinated officials), while others waged free-speech fights and took part in all manner of anti-war and anti-capitalist activism. The rule that anarchists opposed the war was excepted by notable anarchist luminaries such as Kropotkin - and in turn, this support was denounced by others (and the majority) i.e. Goldman, Berkman, Malatesta.
OM: The rather marginal German Anarchist groups were heavily oppressed by the state, so they devoted relatively little time to internal controversy. Activities in general declined markedly, with military authorities often sending known Anarchists, along with other radical leftists, on suicide missions during WWI. Additionally, Anarchists lacked ideas and strategies for dealing with the war, being driven by events rather than taking on an active role.
Wetzel: Let's take each country separately. During the Russian revolution there were a variety of anarchist and libertarian socialist groups. Two groups that worked in an alliance during the revolution were the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalist and the Russian Anarcho-Syndicalist Confederation. For example at the time of the October revolution the alliance between these two groups controlled the important soviet in Kronstadt and provided armed sailors to overthrow the Provisional Government. The October 1917 revolution occurred when the Soviet Congress took power and overthrew the unelected Provisional Government.
All the anarchist and libertarian socialist groups supported this move. However, the Bolsheviks got the Soviet Congress to let them centralize power in a new state via the Council of People's Commissars. The syndicalists and maximalists opposed this but continued to give "critical support" to the revolution because they believed they would be able to still organize for their view in the factory committees, soviets and unions. By 1921 however the militants of these groups were in prison and they were completely suppressed. Between 1918 and 1920 the Communist government also eliminated the last elements of worker collective control in industry and converted the soviets into rubber stamps of the party…including the overthrow of soviet elections that went against them.
The syndicalists and libertarian socialists of the '20s and '30s came to understand that Bolshevik policies and program had led to the creation of a new ruling class in Russia, based on the party and state bureaucracy…the industrial managers, elite planners, military officers, and the power of the party bureaucracy. The working class, in their view, continued to be an exploited and subordinated class.
In Spain the anarcho-syndicalist labor organization, CNT, was the majority union, especially in the industrialized regions of Catalonia and Valencia which contained 80 percent of Spain's manufacturing. Because of the long history of anti-labor violence and repression in Spain, both the CNT and the UGT (union shared by the Socialist and Communist parties) had armed groups. CNT had an organized system of clandestine armed cells in Catalonia, used for protecting workers in strikes. When the army attempted to seize power to crush the labor movement in July 1936, this clandestine armed organization smashed the army in Catalonia. CNT then built its own "proletarian army" with about 100,000 members and UGT built an armed militia also. Under cover of this armed power, the workers of Catalonia and other areas proceeded to engage in the most widespread direct worker seizure of capitalist property that has ever occurred…almost the whole of the economy in northeast Spain. Both the CNT and UGT farm labor unions had a revolutionary program and proceeded to collectivize millions of acres of farm land, creating more than two thousand collectivized village communities.
CNT proposed to replace the Republican state with a joint defense council of the UGT and CNT unions and a unified militia. They also proposed that the entire economy should be socialized under worker management. This was veto'd by the state socialists…the Socialist and Communist Parties. This was based on the Communist's naïve view that somehow they could get the capitalist "democracies" to let the anti-fascist forces buy weapons even though it was clear that a proletarian revolution was underway. So if they "respected government legality" this would protect the "international legitimacy" of the Spanish Republic. This didn't work.
The Communists in Spain pursued a strategy of trying to get control of the state through control of the police and army. After street fighting between CNT armed defense organizations and police in Barcelona in May 1937, the Communists were able to consolidate power in the national state and in 1938 began to nationalize the worker-managed industries, moving to create a managerialist type of bureaucratic class as they did in Eastern Europe after World War 2.
Various anarchist tendencies in the CNT also contributed to this result. At the outset of the revolution anarchists and syndicalists in the CNT were divided over the question of consolidating political or society-wide power. Some thought the decentralized and uncoordinated system of local committees was enough.
A minority wanted the CNT to take power in the regions where it could. This is what they did, under support of Buenaventura Durruti's large militia organization, in eastern Aragon in September 1936. The economy was coordinated via a regional congress of delegates and the village assemblies elected a defense council to replace the old state authority. But they failed to do this in Catalonia and Valencia which were the core industrial regions of Spain. Durruti thought they could negotiate with Francisco Largo Caballero (prime minister and head of the UGT and left wing of the Socialist Party) for an acceptable solution if they held their ground and went as far as they could in consolidating working class power.
Some anarchists in the CNT were confused about the concept of "power". Based on what happened in the Russian revolution, they thought of "taking power" as meaning that some new bureaucratic group would hold top down managerial power in some state. But "taking power" could also be interpreted as collectivizing power, via things like worker delegate congresses and coordinating councils. This would depend upon accountability to the masses via the base assemblies in the workplaces and neighborhoods. By rejecting the solution of building worker political power via workers councils in Catalonia, they found themselves forced into the hopeless situation of participating in the Popular Front government, where they were essentially captive to the socialist parties with their Popular Front strategy.
During World War 2, what was the situation in Spain and Russia, respectively, in which anarchists and state socialists found themselves on the same side or against one another? How did anarchists threaten the cause of state socialists or vice versa? How does this affect present relations?
JA: I don't think the present is affected by the internecine socialist fighting in Spain or during WWII. These historical episodes and the debates that still take-place about them, are not (as far as I can tell) having any negative impact per Marxist/anarchist coordination. Backing up a bit, I say internecine because Trotskyists and anarchists during this period often shared a similar fate and fought/died together - in Spain and Greece most notably.
Wetzel: I think there are several essential strategic goals that the radical left needs to work at:
First, there needs to be a revival of disruptive, collective strike actions by workers. Strikes are very important because workers have the power to shut down the flow of profits to employers, or shut down operation of government agencies. Doing this helps to change the mindset and outlook within the working class because it changes the situation from one where people confront their employers as powerless individuals to a situation where people can think in terms of "we". Strikes are learning experiences because people will learn how they confront all the institutions of the society – the media, the courts, the police, the union bureaucrats, the politicians. It develops "class consciousness" because people tend to think more in terms of "us" versus "them".
Workplace organizing is also important because the workforce has become much more diverse than in an earlier era and thus building mass worker unions with a democratic character means working to build bridges across the various differences in the working class and taking account of the different ways that groups in the working class are oppressed. This is another way in which a revived era of mass worker struggle would change the labor movement.
Rebuilding a real labor movement is not going to be an easy or simple task, partly because the inherited American unions are so intensely bureaucratized and controlled from the top. Back in the '30s radicals generally understood workers have to control their own unions. I think that rebuilding an effective labor movement is going to require building new unions outside the inherited bureaucratic unions of the AFL-CIO.
It's also more likely that working people will become more identified with unionism, if they are not so limited as they've been in their aims and not so controlled by staff and paid officers from HQ but are more authentically organizations workers form and run themselves. There have been various periods in the past where workers in the USA built organizations from below like this on a large scale, as during 1915-21 and 1933-35.
Secondly, and related to my first point, we need ways for working at training and supporting people who make the commitment to stick at the project of rebuilding worker organization and action. This would mean forms of public education outside academia developed by and for working class people. In rebuilding the "militant minority" in the workplace we're laying the groundwork for the radical left to once again have an actual presence and influence in the working class.
Third, for a long time there has been a general understanding by many on the left that fragmentation is a serious weakness. This takes various forms, such as single issue movements, or separation into a myriad of different kinds of movements – climate justice, Black Lives Matters, immigrant rights, tenant movement, each union focusing narrowly on its struggles with its employer, and so on,.
From a strategic point of view, I think we need to think in terms of developing a coalescing of forces into a kind of class front or working class social movement alliance. But I tend to think of this as a grassroots, horizontal kind of linkage, not via bureaucracies of unions and non-profits. This would be reflected in movements supporting the aims and struggles of other movements. There is some of this going on, but it will need to develop further.
It seems that due to the right wing onslaught in the 70s and 80s that much of the left has retreated to the academy. What are your thoughts on this and can it be reversed?
JA: I agree with your premise that the left has retreated to the academia and inward after defeats in the 60's and 70's. I don't know that this will be reversed any-time soon, but I am optimistic. I sense the youth of today are more politicized and enlightened than my generation (generation x), and that gives me hope. As well, the uptick in anti-fascist militancy (unfortunately, an uptick in fascism concomitantly) and propaganda-of-the-deed of late also gives me a sense (although, perhaps it's inflated or a product of my social-bubble) that an episode marked by a more tangible praxis is nigh.
OM: I would agree that there has been a retreat into the academy, but shortly followed by another retreat into subculturalism. With regards to reversal: Where I live, academic Anarchism has largely died out already (except for a few people in deep cover), while the subculture is slowly drying out due to self-isolation and increasing, self-imposed irrelevance. At the same time, I see a lot of discontent with Capitalism and popular demands for alternatives. At least theoretically, we should be able to build on this for a resurgence.
How is anarchism making a comeback today?
JA: Relative to our recent marginalization, I think so. My sense is that more people of know what it is and/or have some sympathy for it.
OM: If us Anarchists can get it together enough to publicly propose viable and attractive alternatives, I consider a comeback not only possible, but actually likely. The demand is there, but we need to deliver. For this, we need to abandon subculturalism and academic obscurantism and actually work in a more strategic and popularly appealing fashion.
How is state socialism making a comeback today?
Wetzel: With the Bernie Sanders campaign the concept of "democratic socialism" was widely popularized. This refers to a social-democratic perspective that doesn't really aim at replacing capitalism with a new socialist economy, but aims to use elections of people to state office to create laws and programs to restrict the predatory behavior of corporations and provide some benefits that would be of benefit to the masses, such as Medicare for All health insurance.
In Europe the old social democratic or socialist parties have been rotted out by commitment to neo-liberalism and austerity. This has led to either new left parties or things like change of leadership in the UK Labour Party, with an aim to pushing back against austerity and rebuilding support for the stronger social-democratic policies that were characteristic of Europe in the post-World War 2 era.
But this isn't really a comeback for the concept of socialism as state-management of the economy or centralized state planning. To the extent that "democratic socialists" or electoral socialists think beyond capitalism at all, they tend to think in terms of building worker cooperatives which would still operate in a market economy. So market socialism, in one form of another, has become the dominant vision for many socialists.
Can anarchists and state socialists ever work together? It seems that that would be so since they agree on so much.
JA: We excel in cooperation where specific issues are concerned...police violence or some local outrage etc. - what I think is difficult is getting socialists abstractly, together under a big umbrella that can connect our groupuscules up and harness our collective potential.
OM: In my experience, cooperation with anti-authoritarian Marxists (like leftcoms) is possible and productive, having participated myself in this. With the more authoritarian variants, only partial/punctual cooperation, usually on defensive issues like anti-fascism, seems practical.
Wetzel: They could work together I think in practical organizing projects such as building unions or cooperatives or tenant organizations or climate justice protests, etc. There have been state socialists as members in syndicalist unions like the IWW for example.
However, there may still be disagreements or conflicts in these areas. These disagreements are likely to happen over the question of how mass organizations are to be run. Libertarian socialists want mass organizations to be self-managed, that is, they want them to be controlled in a direct way by the rank-and-file members. They would oppose concentrating power in an executive body. Social-democrats and Leninists are likely to still favor some strategy of "boring from within" – changing leadership – in the inherited unions, rather than building independent worker committees, and grassroots unions apart from the inherited labor bureaucracy.
Dialogue might suggest areas where there can be agreement in relation to some goals or programs. But there is still the fundamental difference in how libertarian socialists and Leninists (and other state socialists) think about what socialism is. Workers self-management – and complete worker mastery of production -- is, in the libertarian socialist view, a necessary condition for working class liberation from the class system. It's not adequate to limit this to simply control of a coop or individual workplace but has to be generalized and coordinated throughout the economy, from a libertarian socialist point of view.
There is the related problem of how we view working class political power or society wide power. Even if libertarian socialists would support particular reforms in the context of the present system (such as Medicare for All in USA), in the end the old state has to be dismantled for the working class to be freed from its subordinate class position. That's because the state is based on top-down structures of managerial control that have the boss/worker relation of subordination built in. The state represents the concentrated defense of a system of class domination and exploitation, and the forms of inequality tied in with this. So working class political power would have to be based on some form of delegate democracy consistent with worker self-management everywhere and be accountable to the masses at the base, through workplace and neighborhood assemblies.
A form of direct communal power by the masses (via neighborhood and workplace assemblies) is also going to be essential to have a solution to the present worsening environmental crisis. The people need to obtain a very direct control over what gets put into the atmosphere and water through the economic system. So we can think of the socialist goal as having both a worker control and communal control dimension. But both require replacing the present hierarchical institutions – corporations and state – that dominate society.
Historically socialists have often defined socialism as democratic worker and community control over the political economy. Libertarian and state socialists have differed in working out the details.
Posted by Devon DB at 10:17 AM No comments:
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Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 February 2008, 09:53 GMT
Double boost for Blu-ray backers
The two formats are battling for long-term supremacy
The backers of the Blu-ray high definition DVD system have received a twin boost in their ongoing format war with HD DVD.
Best Buy - the US's largest consumer electronics chain - has announced it is to recommend that its customers choose Sony's Blu-ray format.
Its shops will carry HD DVD but Blu-ray will be displayed more prominently.
And online video rental company Netflix said it would phase out its HD DVD stock and exclusively offer Blu-ray.
Studio backing
Netflix has become the US's largest company in a fast-growing field - DVD rental by mail - and announced a year ago that it had made its billionth DVD delivery after just eight years in business.
It has stocked both Blu-ray and HD DVD since the formats came on the market in early 2006 but said it had been prompted to reconsider this after a majority of the major Hollywood studios came out in favour of Blu-ray.
Walt Disney, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers and MGM are the studios that have endorsed Blu-ray. Paramount and Universal Studios publish their high-definition DVDs in Toshiba's HD DVD format.
The company also said the reality was that not many customers were ordering HD DVDs. "From the Netflix perspective, focusing on one format will enable us to create the best experience for subscribers," it said in a statement.
Netflix's rival Blockbuster said last June that it planned to stock only Blu-ray titles in its 1,450 US stores.
Best Buy's decision was explained by its president and chief operating officer Brian Dunn, who said: "Best Buy has always believed that the customer will benefit from a widely accepted single format that would offer advantages such as product compatibility and expanded content choices.
"Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products."
The battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray has echoes of the rivalry between Betamax and VHS in the 1980s over which was the better video format for customers.
Although both competed side-by-side for several years, the cheaper VHS format eventually won total dominance of the market.
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This was the official site for a historic street parade that was staged annually in Milwaukee for almost 20 years. The parade featured a cast of over 1,500 costumed performers, 700 animals, and dozens of ornate 19th-century circus wagons. Unfortunately, changing times and funding challenges led to the cancellation of the parade after the 2003 event.
I was the webmaster for this site for four years.