Video Archives

Electoral Campaigns, Uncle Noam

Vote Trump Out – Message from Noam Chomsky to Swing State Voters

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Here is the A Message to the Swing States video from Noam Chomsky and the Roots Action gang, which concluded yesterday’s Raucous Rooster PSA, The Perils of Low-Information Voters & Garbage People – A Raucous Rooster Public Service Announcement. It can also be viewed here. The embedded video failed to appear in the post email sent to subscribers. We apologize for the error, which was entirely editorial’s fault. – RR

Immigration & Migrant Workers

Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl Named Dulce Carajal Whose Mother Was About to Be Deported

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Courtesy of Cinthya Santos Briones and The Nation magazine.

The Nation
Published on Feb 14, 2018

Dulce Carvajal is a lot like most ten-year-olds. She likes reading and writing, drawing and horses, and playing with her younger siblings. She’s bright and shy and often soft-spoken. Too much attention embarrasses her. Candy makes her giddy. But unlike most other kids her age, she has spent the last six months of her young life living in a church alongside her mother and two younger siblings.

The family took refuge in Holyrood Church in Washington Heights last August, after Dulce’s mother, Amanda Morales, was told she was going to be deported to Guatemala. All three children—Dulce, Daniela, and David—are US citizens. But when faced with the prospect of being separated from her children while fighting the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, Amanda decided to bring her children into sanctuary with her.

Dulce is an aspiring writer and storyteller. So, as she has grappled with her new and complex world, she has begun writing her own story. In the evenings, sitting at the small dinner table or at the edge of her shared bunk bed, she peers at her family’s laptop and types in bursts of concentrated energy, pausing occasionally to ponder her next thought amid the din of her new life—her mother talking with some of the church members, who have become fast friends; her sister whirling across their single, cramped bedroom; and her baby brother’s tablet streaming his favorite cartoons.

What follows is Dulce’s story as told by her through photos, written text, and narration. It is the second installment of Finding Sanctuary, a Nation series chronicling Amanda and her children’s daily lives as they seek refuge from today’s increasingly anti-immigrant landscape.

Video Produced and edited by Cinthya Santos Briones.

Uncategorized

Barbara Lee’s Amendment to Repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force Passed by House Appropriations Committee

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According to Politico, “Congress may finally be getting fed up with war on autopilot.”

While that opener may be wildly optimistic at this point, writers Bryan Bender and Jennifer Scholtes continued:

A powerful House committee voted unexpectedly Thursday to require Congress to debate and approve U.S. military action in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other far-flung countries — in a surprise victory for a longtime Democratic critic of the nearly two-decade-old war on terrorism.

The amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee of California — one of countless she has offered in recent years — is only a modest first step in getting Congress to update the authorization of military force that lawmakers adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Thursday’s voice vote in the GOP-controlled Appropriations Committee is a symbolic move forward.

Even Republicans with military experience embraced Lee’s defense spending bill amendment, which would repeal the 2001 authorization. They noted that the anti-terror struggle has evolved markedly since the days when U.S. troops hunted Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan, yet Congress has never debated and authorized the fight against newer extremist groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Members of the military “notice that we don’t have the courage to debate this and to give them the authority to go do this,” said Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who served in the Air Force and comes from a family of soldiers. “And I know that from my friends who are in the military right now.”

Continue reading at the source.

Community

Make Friends!

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World’s Top Religious Leaders Issue Rare Joint Appeal

Writes Carol Kuruvilla for the Huffington Post,

Religion is often viewed as a force that sows divisions between people. But the world’s most prominent religious leaders have come together to present a different vision of how faith can work in the world.

In a rare move, major religious leaders ― from Pope Francis to the Dalai Lama ― issued a joint appeal Wednesday asking people to follow a simple bit of advice: Make friends with people of other faiths.

“Our advice is to make friends to followers of all religions,” Ayatollah Sayyid Fadhel Al-Milani, one of the U.K.’s most senior Shia Muslim clerics, said in a video recording.

“Personal contact, personal friendship, then we can exchange a deeper level of experience,” the Dalai Lama said.

Continue reading at the source. Be patient – the video begins with 15 seconds of silence. For more information on the group behind the Make Friends video, visit the Elijah Interfaith Institute. – RR