English for Activists

Hi, everyone. This is an e-news letter for the last class on 30th March. I will briefly describe the activities in the class and make small notes of what appeared remarkable to me.

We did three things in the class.

Firstly, we did the correction of the last e-news letter written by Yasu-san. There, Yasu-san detailed the process of Monopoly we played in the class. I thought it amazing that he could represent the process so meticulously, none of which I could recall (perhaps I did not know what was going on, even when I was playing!).

A report discussed on Democracy Now! on March 12, 2010 has this shocking statistic: "nearly half of all single black and Hispanic women have zero or negative wealth, meaning their debts exceed all of their assets. The median wealth for single black women is only $100; for single Hispanic women, $120. This compares to just over $41,000 for single white women."

This video is based on a "manga" called A People's History of the American Empire by Howard Zinn, a great historian and activist who died this year.

Would you like to read or listen to news about activism in the US and other countries? Here are some useful resources:

http://www.labornet.org/ -- "Global online communication since 1991 for a democratic, independent labor movement"

http://www.labourstart.org/ -- "Where trade unionists start their day on the net."

http://www.democracynow.org/ -- "A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S."

Pete Seeger -- long time peace activist, labor activist, and singer -- singing his famous song, "bring them home." (Words follow)

Chie Matsumoto explaining the efforts to organize dispatch workers.

This is a speech by Malcolm X, from Democracy Now. Transcript follows below.

Takasu, Joe, Keiichi and Yasuko worked on this text from Shige's report:

Object

The object of this forum is to contribute to build north east asia green community through making sustainable living area. The first forum ware started at 2001 and continued every year changing the holding place.

Subject
Turn around the past years, the subject were changed every year. Takesima in Korea named Dokuto domain problem, Japanese Textbook of History, Nuclear armament of North Korea, Worship Yasukuni Shrine problem, Decentralization.

In the United States, Barack Obama is deciding which strategy to follow in Afghanistan. He should listen to this speech in which King took a public position against the Vietnam war. It's long, try listening to it a bit at a time.

An interview with Kawazoe Makoto and Yuasa Makoto, with an introduction by the translator Philip Seaton.

http://www.japanfocus.org/-M_Kawazoe__M_Yuasa_-P_Seaton/2710