Mandy Carter – USA

Linked with The National Black Justice Coalition NBJC.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Mandy Carter has formed connections among a range of issues: opposition to war and violence, support for social and economic justice for people of color, and equal rights for women, lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people. She works in grassroots campaigns and national coalitions, especially focused on the religious right’s antigay organizing in black communities. She is a brilliant coalition builder, highly respected by people from diverse backgrounds. Her work has been essential to the inclusion of gay/lesbian issues as social justice issues in the United States. She says: « We get so wrapped up in ‘just us’. The question of the day – this to me is the question of the future – are we about justice or ‘just us ». (1000peacewomen).

Her photo on the National Black Justice Coalition NBJC.

Fellow Durham resident, Nobel Prize nominee and long-time LGBT activist Mandy Carter has been named to the Obama National LGBT Steering and Policy Committee. Mandy Carter has been organizing North Carolina African Americans and LGBT people for years, and has served as a member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She co-founded Southerners On New Ground (SONG) in 1993 and was a leader in Harvey Gantt’s two campaigns for U.S. Senate. She has done the hard work of organizing LGBT grassroots networks, especially of people of color, throughout the South. She was a member of Hillary Clinton’s North Carolina LGBT Steering Committee … (full text, Aug 27, 2008).

The video: Mandy Carter Honored, 2.55 min, February 09, 2008.

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2x Mandy Carter – USA

She works for the Southerners On New Ground S.O.N.G., for the National Call to Resist, and for the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum (named on Idealist.org).

Mandy Carter’s grassroots work on anti-war and social justice fronts is gaining global recognition.

Mandy Carter spoke about the importance of the LGBT vote (I just added that video below the fold). Also, I forgot to mention that we also had one pathetic McCain supporter on the sidelines screaming « McCain, McCain, McCain. » She couldn’t even manage to round up a few friends to make a decent show of things … (An Obama-loathing fundie serves up hellfire on a pizza box at NC Pride, 09/28/2008).

Defending my sista: I have fixed the Mandy Carter, Pepper LaBeija, and Dorian Corey links that weren’t working. I wasn’t aware of it until it was brought to my attention. I also added a new link that gives a list of lgbts of color via wikipedia … (full text).

She says also: … « Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the « black enough » conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history » … (full interview text).

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Antonio "Toni" Negri – Italy

Linked with naked punch.

Antonio (« Toni ») Negri (born August 1, 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. Negri is perhaps best-known for his co-authorship of Empire and his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of the Autonomia Operaia. Accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the Red Brigades (BR), involved in the May 1978 assassination of Aldo Moro leader of the Christian-Democrat Party, among others, Negri was later cleared of any links with the BR. He was, however, sentenced to a long-term prison sentence on controversial charges of « association and insurrection against the state. » Negri went to France and taught at the Université de Vincennes (Paris-VIII) and the Collège International de Philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He now lives between Venice and Paris with his partner, the french philosopher Judith Revel … (full text).

His book: EMPIRE, downloadable in pdf, 2000, 496 pages.

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Antonio « Toni » Negri – Italy

Video: Antonio Negri: A Revolt That Never Ends, in english, and french and italian english translated /english subtitled, 52.35 min, Nov 23, 2007. (Same – short vision, 9.59 min).

His Political thought and writings.

He says: … « it is indeed necessary to recognize as a fact the emergence of the B.R. [Red Brigades] and NAP [Armed Proletariat Nuclei] as the tip of the iceberg of the Movement. This does not require one in any way to transform the recognition into a defense, and this does not in any way deny the grave mistake of the B.R. line. At one point I defined the B.R. as a variable of the movement gone crazy … I state again that terrorism can only be fought through an authentic mass political struggle and inside the revolutionary movement ». (quotes).

He says also: « Prison, with its daily rhythm, with the transfer and the defense, does not leave any time; prison dissolves time: This is the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society ». (quotes).

… In their project Empire (notable as an academic and trade success), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri examine the loss of political borders. The permeability of our own country on September 11 is evidence that national borders are ill protected, ill conceived, and increasingly less relevant in the world today. This is in part, why American’s harbor such fear over the border with Mexico. What this all means is that the next President will be forced to confront the War from a different worldview then President Bush. It requires recognition that the War on Terror cannot be fought from border to border and country to country. Each candidate has already offered ample evidence of how they would prosecute the war … (full text, September 22, 2008).

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