[-empyre-] from 5th Avenue New York City

[Renate Ferro]

Gee Alan you totally misunderstood my post.  My HELLO was an address
to Mr. Obama who unabashedly today (while young people are taking the
streets) decided to talk about the economy.  The post was certainly
not meant to diminish that a few more young people are getting jobs
but amazingly that he did not recognize or acknowledge this grass
roots movement.

Hope to hear from more of you about the relationship between media and
movement.  Best, Renate



On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 8:18 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at gmail.com> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> HELLO?  What about the thousands of young and dis-engranchised who for
> the past three nights around the US  have been shouting out to be
> heard about the injustices that have manifested themselves over the
> past several weeks.
>
> -- But we're in Rhode Island where there are protests which are fantastic, everywhere here downtown - but the fact there are jobs, that's good, and your HELLO? does an injustice to people who can't find work, can't get food, can't get shelter; in Rhode Island we have the nation's highest or second-highest unemployment, and this brings real pain to the disenfranchised, in particular to people of color - any employment news like this is good news here, and one social injustice does not negate another which might be, somewhat barely, addressed.
> - Alan
>
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 7:59 PM, Renate Ferro <renateferro at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> It is raining here in New York City.  Tim Murray and I just joined
>> hundreds of protestors who marched down 5th Avenue, one of the most
>> tourist, commodified streets in the world.  Past the Rockefeller
>> Center Christmas tree decorated in lights galore hundreds of tourists
>> stood in line to watch on one side the lit tree and the other side a
>> light/video show on the facade of Saks Fifth Avenue.  Loud speakers
>> filled the block and adjacent streets with holiday music.  Disrupting
>> that scene hundreds of what I noted as young activists marched
>> directly down the side walks of this holiday scene shouting "Hands Up,
>> Don't Shoot,"  "I can't breathe," and other chants to stop shoppers in
>> their tracks.  Shoppers had two choices:  to clear out of the way for
>> protestors or to join.
>>
>> Right now in Macy's protestors move into the inside of the shopping
>> season, lay down and conduct a "die in."
>>
>> I find it stunning (has to be another word) that reflects the
>> confusion of the  junta-postion between a commodity driven season and
>> a politically driven movement that collides head to head.  How crazy
>> is it that just moments before when I opened my email via the smart
>> phone I was using to video the moment, the White House sent out this
>> message:
>>
>> "We've been watching the economy steadily improve for years, but today
>> there's new reason to really zoom in on that progress. Consider this:
>> Last month, American businesses created 314,000 jobs, extending the
>> longest streak of job growth on record. That's 10.9 million jobs added
>> over the last 57 straight months.
>> Let's put that in perspective: With 2.6 million jobs created in the
>> first 11 months of the year, we've already added more jobs in 2014
>> than in any entire year since the late 1990s.
>> It's been a long road to recovery since the Great Recession. And while
>> there's more work to do, America is outpacing much of the world in
>> putting people back to work.
>> Take a look at how far our economy has come since President Obama took
>> office -- then share the facts with everyone who needs to know:"
>>
>> HELLO?  What about the thousands of young and dis-engranchised who for
>> the past three nights around the US  have been shouting out to be
>> heard about the injustices that have manifested themselves over the
>> past several weeks.
>>
>> World-wide ordinary people from Hong Kong to Mexico to the US are
>> shouting out as well about other injustices.  Can we take a moment to
>> reflect on how these movements may be organically generating?  How
>> does social media, list serves, networked media enable movements such
>> as these? What else may be inspiring these gestures of resistance.  I
>> am looking forward to speaking to all of you now but for now I have to
>> run.
>>
>> Renate Ferro (and Tim Murray from NYC)
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
>
>
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