CT rapper Front Page discusses the scapegoating of hip hop in the wake of a shooting at a nightclub in downtown Hartford, and other issues in rap today.

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You are invited to the Queers Without Borders [QWB] monthly meeting this coming Sunday, July 12th, 5 pm, at MCC/Hartford, 155 Wyllys Street, Hartford, Ct.(*directions below).   Some of the topics we will be discussing Sunday are:

• planning the QWB play Queer Revolutionary Voices
• QWB presence and possible panel at the Providence Anarchist Book Fair
• planning the Queer immigration event/panel

QWB was formed several years back to proudly reclaim our Queer Identity. QWB meetings are open to all, be you queer or ally, and we invite each and every Continue Reading

(Change.org End Homelessness blog) A knife wielding homeless man was shot and killed by Police in Philadelphia on Friday.

The 20 year veteran Police didn’t elect to use a Taser, they didn’t use a night stick, they didn’t retreat to a safe distance. They did what they were trained to do = use deadly force / shoot to kill with a gun. (more…)

Mahbod Seraji, author of Rooftops of Tehran, discusses the current political upheaval in Iran, the US media, and what American leaders and citizens can do in support.

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The language of combat veterans is replete with graphic and brutal description revealing the depth of emotion. When I was in Viet Nam we said things like this: “There is no justice, there is just us.” Instead of killed in action we were “wasted or zapped.” The Zippo squad burned down villages, the only good gook is a dead gook, people safe back in the World were REMF’s, rear echelon mother fuckers. The bitter rage reflected in this language has festered deep in our souls and has now been released by an act of presidential betrayal. I voted for Barack Obama and worked for the Anti-war movement in the hope that he would keep his word. He has broken his word and the Anti-war movement has fallen asleep as if in a drug induced slumber.

I went to Washington DC on March 19th for the March on the Pentagon. There were over 20,000 demonstrators and a contingent of 1,000 veterans of WW II, Korea, Viet Nam, Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan. The veterans were members of Veterans for Peace, Viet Nam Veterans against the War, VVAW Anti-Imperialist and Iraq Veterans against the War. The President flew over our heads and left the White House for parts unknown. No members of Congress were with us, nor any mainstream United States print or media. There were present members of the European and Japanese press.

I want to believe that in his heart Obama wants to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to believe that because he is surrounded by corporate vampires of the military industrial complex he is not able to act on his beliefs. It is becoming harder and harder for me to repress my rage. I have been attending PTSD group therapy with other combat veterans of Viet Nam. Though our politics are disparate we are all wounded and enraged by the continuing pointless killing and maiming of our brothers and sisters-in-arms. As a group we consider the wars to be illegal and immoral and an economic disaster for the United States. What is even more telling is that our voices have now taken on a context that implies using our military training to correct our own government. We talk about cosmoline and canvass. We talk about weapons caches and the 2nd Amendment. The Declaration of Independence notes that when a duly elected government fails to represent the people, it is the duty of the people to remove it, “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government….”

The entire country and world has been mesmerized by the death of Michael Jackson. Not one headline or lead media story has reported the five GI’s killed on the last day of June in Baghdad, the brigade sized operation sending 4,000 Marines into Helmand province in Afghanistan and the capture or MIA of 3 GI’s in Afghanistan. Your silence makes all of you complicit in the killing and dying. I am still flying my American flag reversed from the 2nd floor of my house in Hartford. My hope was that after the electoral defeat of the Republicans and the installment of Obama in the White House I could right my flag and fly it proudly. I will leave it reversed as an expression of my distress and rage. I hope I live long enough to see it righted.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace

In framing the title/subject of this piece it is not my intent to spell out a detailed critical analysis of an LGBTQ movement in this brief essay, though rather, as best as I can from my perspective, initiate a framework for such an analysis and most importantly hopefully engender a collaborative dialogue on this subject.

The basic premise of this analysis frames itself around the value and effectiveness of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (add your own other labels) community to rally around the implicit connotation of a full LGBTQ equality movement.  Is this a movement to secure full equality for all diverse genders and sexualities? Is this a movement demanding true sexual and gender revolution or simply sexual and gender reforms?  Is this a movement that truly represents all peoples and diversities within the LGBTQ communities? Or is this a movement to assure full equality within the heterosexual framework of western culture? Continue Reading