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I’m tired of people sharing pictures of folks in Ferguson who are stopping looting. While I understand the impulse, attempting to show that there are a multiplicity of responses to the verdict and that not everyone feels the same about property destruction, it also seems to repeat the criminalizing of folks who do loot and suggest a certain respectable propriety as what the “good” protestors are doing.
This continues a similar delegitimizing of property destruction and looting that the mainstream media panders in. But property destruction and looting are not senseless. They’re not dumb. They’re a response. An uncomfortable response for a society who thinks private property is an extension of our bodies. |
Thomas, a Syracuse University art professor, is a part of Strike Debt. Strike Debt is a nationwide movement of debt resistors fighting for economic justice and democratic freedom. A little over a year ago, Strike Debt announced Rolling Jubilee. Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. They are trying to spark a movement that imagines and creates a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits . . .
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In this thoughtful and systematic exploration, Friesen and Stoner understand the Bible to be an extended argument about life, love and power. In the various biblical texts, this argument presents two versions of the Hebrew god, one who aligns with kings and the religious establishment, the other who makes a fool of kings and aligns with everyday people. Through discussion of each biblical text, the authors highlight how this argument plays out in the history of the Israelites, the prophetic attempts to articulate an alternative to the nation-state, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the multi-ethnic community that emerged after Jesus' death.
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