Act Collective performs at DC JwJ Awards Ceremony

Thanks to all who came out yesterday to the DC Jobs with Justice awards ceremony.

The theater group that we're in, the ACT collective, was invited to perform. We did a version of "The Pit" which is based on Nishant Natya Manch's adaptaion of one of Hindi writer Kishanchandar's short stories. That short story itself is based on the biblical story of the good samaritan.

In our version, we tell the story of an immigrant woman who falls into a pit while trying to escape from ICE. She appeals to every passersby to help her out but no one does. The common folk are very busy with their lives and have no time to help others. The cop views her as a terrorist on account of her skin color and threatens arrest. The profit-mongering Sprawlmart representative offers to pull the woman out if she agrees to work for him at 4 dollars an hour. The minuteman wants her deported at once as he holds people like her responsible for unemployment and poverty. There's also an economist who tries to explain that the world is just fine the way it is and she should stop whining, and a politician who ignores her completely. In the end, the audience is asked whether they can help

Here's a slideshow of some of the highlights...

Thomas Friedman gets pied

From ZP Heller blogging at alternet...

Thomas Friedman, the author and NY Times columnist, was all set to deliver an Earth Day speech at Brown University entitled "Green is the new Red, White, and Blue." Friedman's been calling for government-led environmentalism to bring about energy salvation and climate change.

Not everyone agrees with Friedman's ideas, including the Greenwash Guerrillas, who stormed the stage and let their green pies fly. As the Greenwash Guerillas fled, they threw leaflets into the crowd that stated:

Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face...

* Because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism's conquest of the planet.

* For telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.

* For helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged

* For his long-standing support for the US Occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Such committed support to the US War Machine and its proxy states overseas cannot be masked behind any twisted mask of "green" - the US Military is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

* For his pure arrogance.

On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists -- we, the Greenwash Guerrillas, declare Thomas Friedman's "Green" as fake and toxic to human and planetary health as the cool-whip covering his face.

I'll try to post a longer critique of Friedman at some point. He's my favourite straw man to bring up in workshops these days because his arguments in favour of globalization vary between the silly and the inane.