Monthly Archives: May, 2012

MAY 10, 2012 - Cher hammered presumed Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney in a series of Tweets. According to EOnline she Tweeted, "If ROMNEY gets elected I don't know if I can breathe same air as Him & his Right Wing Racist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters." It has ignited a firestorm on her Twitter page, and she even apologized to some of her followers later on.

MAY 10, 2012 - Photographer Amara Betty Martin was up in New York for the recent May Day march, and she caught so many scenes of the day in rich black and white photography, freezing a moment in life and preserving it, while at the same time making a piece of art out of these moments in history. Below is one of her pictures of an activist musician drumming, his drumming frozen in time, his energy bottled. 

You can check out more of Amara's pictures at her Facebook page.

(Photo credit: kiinovilland.com)

MAY 10, 2012 - Activist Erin Potts, who works with campaigns such as the Free Tibet movement with the Milarepa Fund, and musical activism with Air Traffic Control to name just two, has shared her memories and thoughts with the world about her experiences with Adam Yauch, a longtime friend of hers, in a letter on the ATC website. Together they started the Milarepa Fund through royalties on the Beastie Boys songs "Shambala" and "Bodhisattva Vow" to support Tibetan independence, and this paved the way for the popular Tibetan Freedom Concerts.

In her letter Potts says, "he didn’t just produce and perform at our concerts for Tibet. He also went to conferences and organized workshops. He was deeply strategic–most of the time–always passionate, and always welcoming. He believed in our team of inexperienced but determined 20-somethings, and our ability to do the impossible. And with that belief in us and in nonviolence, together we DID do the impossible. Never before has more fun been had while changing the world!!"

Read the letter on the ATC website here, and thanks to TibetArchive on YouTube for this clip of the Beastie Boys from one of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts from back in 1999.

MAY 9, 2012 - Vieux Farka Toure', the son of Malian music legend Ali Farka Toure',  is using his music and activism in Mali to bring about awareness and change for social issues, most recently helping out with getting mosquito nets to women in Mali, and lending his support to the Fight Malaria Campaign. He hopes to reinvent music, and reach out on a global scale and have an impact on the grassroots level with positive change. He also reaches out across borders and religions, and on his new album he plays with Israeli pianist Idan Raichel. A review of his album on Difrent.org says, "In a beautiful statement of musical transcendence, the rhythmically infectious album brings an Israeli Jew together with a Malian Muslim, soaring straight over the stale and outdated political dialogue of divisiveness, a strong image of the world that the young generation is making." Check out a performance video from Vieux below, and his website is here.

MAY 8, 2012 - The war on poverty, known to most Americans as the "war on drugs", almost killed a young law student at UC San Diego, when he was arrested by police and put handcuffed in a windowless cell and forgotten for 5 days, with no food or water. On April 20, 2012 Daniel Chong went to one of the many annual 4/20 counterculture parties across America, but was swept up in a police raid the next morning and forgotten about when he was put into a holding cell. Daniel said later, "I didn't care if I lived or died, I was completely insane.", and even ate one of his eyeglass lenses to try and commit suicide. JTMP supports the ending of the insane war on drugs, and urges our supporters to sign the petition over at Just Say Now calling for the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate the DEA's abuse of Daniel Chong. Read more on CBSNews.com here.

President Obama and the White House have set up on their website where Americans can directly petition the President and give us a "voice in our government", and an American citizen has started a petition to legalize marijuana on it, and you can check it out here.