art

The Never Ending Tale: Images of Despair and Hope from the Great Depression to the Great Recession

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HOBOS TO STREET PEOPLE: ARTIST’S RESPONSES TO HOMELESSNESS FROM THE NEW DEAL TO THE PRESENT
by Art Hazelwood
Freedom Voices, 2011
In 1939, the iconic American photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) took and disseminated a photograph of a mother and her two children on the road in Siskiyou County, California (Figure 1). Like all of Lange’s Depression era images, this work reveals the powerful human pathos of poverty and homelessness. Viewers cannot fail to feel the agony and despair of a mother trying desperately to maintain her family in the midst of overwhelming economic catastrophe. Like hundreds of her photographs, this effort represents the essence of socially committed art, the result of a visual artist who used her creativity to call attention to the human face of social disruption and human suffering. Art historians universally accept Lange as one of the masters of American photography, both for her outstanding artistic skills and for her profound empathy for the most marginalized members of society during the Great Depression.

Empathy

Occupy the Tax Code

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Tax policy may seem far from the passion of Occupy, but it is essential to this moral movement. Reforming taxes on capital gains, the profits from sales of stocks and other financial assets, will target the wealthiest without hurting the economy.

General News

Houses for Change: Kids with Homes Helping Kids Without

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“Homelessness won’t disappear,” Rabbi Lerner said in his keynote speech at the national conference of Family Promise, an interfaith nonprofit helping homeless families, “until people collectively work to end homelessness.” Family Promise has created a national campaign, Houses for Change, to do just that. It is a grassroots educational crafts project to arrange at family gatherings, congregations, schools, scout troops and other organizations. Since its launch a year ago, more than 15,000 kids and parents have made their own unique Houses for Change collection boxes to raise awareness of homelessness and raise funds to help homeless families. Using arts supplies and their imagination, participants decorate pre-ordered boxes to look like houses, take their boxes home and in the following weeks fill them with loose change.

art

Photo Essay: Life at Occupy DC

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In the aftermath of the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park in New York, the OWS protesters at Occupy DC in McPherson Square on K Street in Washington DC remain committed even more resolutely than before.

Politics & Society

"When Hope Comes Back": A Poem for the 99 Percent

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Well, that was fun. Powerful. And #Occupytastic. Last night, I was out on Sproul Plaza at UC-Berkeley, with over 10,000 people reclaiming the space for OccupyCal. I was there to receive the Mario Savio Young Activist Award, which had been scheduled for the same night across the plaza inside Pauley Ballroom.

Culture

In the Face of Repression – Notes from OccupyOakland Nov 15th

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Early morning on Monday, November 14th, the Oakland Police once again evacuated the OccupyOakland camp. That was the day I was planning to attend the facilitation committee meeting. Being unsure about whether or not a meeting would take place, and knowing how long it would be before I could attend a meeting again, I decide to take a chance and go. The plaza is barricaded on all sides, with only employees being allowed to enter. Some restaurants are openly displaying their menus in an empty plaza full of sanitation workers.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Occupy the Occupiers: A Jewish Call to Action

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We call for young Jews and allies nationwide to join in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and with our Palestinian siblings living under their own form of occupation. Let us stand up to the 1% in our own community – the powerful institutions that support Israel’s corporate-backed military control of the Palestinian people and act as the gatekeepers for our community. Throughout history, Jews have been persecuted as the scapegoats for powerful financiers, thus bearing the brunt of economic hardship on multiple fronts. This collective memory instills us with the responsibility to speak out against corporate exploitation and human rights violations, such as the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, which has politically and economically disenfranchised over nine million people in the name of Jewish statehood. The ongoing colonization of Palestine has concentrated wealth in the hands of the ultra-stratified Israeli elite, as well as multinational corporations like Caterpillar, Motorola, Elbit, Northrop Grumman, and Veolia.