AdBusters Article

This was linked on the home page of Adbusters... a great follow up to the post Wesley made about Apathy.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/78/rage.html


Read it. Think about it.


---
peace.


Steph

Apathy

"We are storytellers. We are visionaries, humanitarians, artists, and entrepreneurs. We are individuals part of a generation eager for change and willing to pursue it."- Invisible Children

Be willing to make a difference. To move for something that matters. How often do we feel like we're part of something important? How frequently do you hear the complaints of friends that so-and-so is fake? Bored and with nothing to do we sit down and watch television--an activity less stimulating than sleeping. With nothing to do, you grab the remote and click over to SpongeBob.

Nothing to do. I am so sick of hearing people complain that they have nothing to do. We live in a whirlwind of ipods and computer chips, instant, meaningless entertainment at our fingertips every second of the day. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people are dying every day in other regions of the world due to warfare. But we're too busy watching a fucking sponge to notice.

We live wrapped up in petty dramas, delighting in gossip but refusing to talk about critical issues. Our news stations care more about Britney Spears shaving her head than genocide in Africa. If Paris Hilton puts out a sex tape millions of web users have seen at least a portion of it within a couple days. But who gives a damn that in Northern Uganda thousands of little girls have been kidnapped from their families and forced to be sexual slaves to brutal men, to an entire rebel army. Raped and damaged to the point that they can no longer control their bowels.

Our nation was in an uproar because 3,000 people lost their lives during the 9/11 attacks. 10,000 people die EVERY DAY in Africa, but we do nothing. Wouldn't it be wonderful if ours could be a generation that cared. I challenge you to take some time to step outside of your American Dream and look at the world. Take the initiative to do something. Because that's the reality of the matter: we can do something. We have the amazing opportunity to actually influence our policy makers, yet we seldom take advantage of our right to do so.

Gandhi said we must be the change we want to see in the world. We have to want it. Desire peace, desire justice, desire an end to poverty, and demand a global effort to make the change you desire. I'm saving the world. I challenge you to join me.


--
Wesley.

The American Mourning

So recently due to unfortunate events within my family, I have taken notice of how it is we as Americans grieve to those close to us and those we care about. For the sake of society we send flowers, cards of condolences, make a donation to a charity in the name of the deceased.

To a friend who has lost of loved one, we offer our prayers, our support, and a shoulder to cry on. All of which give those in grieving great comfort and does indeed provide the support so desperately needed. As I have learned these past couple of days, it is necessary for one to cry and mourn, to be with family and those who can celebrate the life of those who have passed.

In contrast, when all life gives you is death, sickness, and misfortune you result in becoming numb. The pain can no longer be differentiated from daily life. A friend had sent this to me a while back, and I thought back to it a number of times the past couple days...



The tenacity of the Congolese both impressed and confused the hell out of me. In America we made mourning such a public affair, poured over the virtues of the dead, and placed great significance on dates remembering them. It wasn’t like that here. Despite everything that happened in those weeks, I’d yet to see mothers wail over their dead in public, or children cry at all for that matter. I’d certainly see it later, but here the trauma was so malignant it had ravaged everything soft inside and left them numb.

I remember the way the man from Drodro had described how gunboys kicked his six-month-old baby in the air and sliced her in half with a machete. How they rounded up the rest of his kids and butchered them in the yard. He’d watched it all from is window, yet when he told the story, you’d think he was recounting something he’d read in a newspaper.
“This happens all the time,” the woman in the yellow dress had told me during the gun battle.

Ravage was a disease perched constantly in the corner, and hunger was part of growing up. They endured because it was all they knew. In Congo, people just died, and over the next five years, the war would kill them at the rate of twelve hundred per day.



--
Peace.

Steph

What is going on in Juba?!

Currently on the ground in Uganda, there is a stalemate. The Juba peace talks have halted with Kony having fired his mediators and currently refuses to sign the Final Peace Agreement. David Matsanga, the former head rebel negoitator claims he has been reinistated by Kony. So for now the peace process is at a standstill.

However, the UN Secutrity Council is receiving a brief on the status of the Ugandan peace process on June 20 and the importance of international attention is continuing. Although there has been a falter in the process, it is important that we do not give up on the cause or become dishartended.

Change is something we can make and impact.


Peace.

-Steph

So a Little About Steph...

The founding members of One Beat are: Steph (me!), Wesley, Kay, and Amy. A little about myself...

I live in Boston now, and went to high school outside of Philadelphia in a cute little town, Doylestown. It was in high school that I became involved with social activist work, and the crisis in Uganda, which is where One Beat is focusing our early efforts.

My senior year AP English teacher, Mr. Robert Trachtenburg, presented myself and the other 8 members of our class the opportunity to replace a paper with a project focused on activism, since it was a pretty consistent theme throughout the class. Our classmates established the Youth Activist Movement and educated our school and community on what was happening in Northern Ugandan and the horrors of child soldiers, abductions, and displacement camps.

Upon my arrival in Boston, I sought out ways to continue working for this cause. It wasn't until this February, when attending Lobby Days in D.C. where I met Wesley and Kay that things for One Beat begun to brew.

Since than we have been planning, discussing, what we want to accomplish and how we are going to do it. Although we are still planning for the fall, we are ready to make a difference here in our Boston community.

Although what I already told you is the sequence of events that brought us to today, there is something more involved, a sense of duty, of pride, and of making the world better for the people we share it with. There is a lot in this world that can be improved and that needs to be changed. Often it is thought there is more to be fixed than one individual can accomplish. But one individual's actions will inspire others. We can only do as much as we set our minds out to accomplish.



Peace.

-Steph

One Beat Looks to Launch on September 1

One Beat Boston is the newest social activst group in the Boston Community. We want to work towards unite Boston across schools, churches, volunteer groups, and towns to bring together one voice for social activism.

We are in the planning stages of our fall campaign here in Boston, but in the mean time, we want to let you all know a bit about the people behind One Beat as well as more about what is going on in Uganda and why One Beat has picked this issue as the starting ground of our organization.



Peace.

-Steph