Please support LFS’ BalikSamBayanan Summer Exposure Trip to the Philippines! Funds raised will go to funding the trip and the various communities and organizations we visit! If you cannot attend the show but would still like to donate funds, please email LFS-SFSU @ lfs.sfsu@gmail.com
Not convinced yet? Let this year’s hosts change your mind!
It has been a while since we’ve done this. but like the rest of the world, LFS’ members were struck by the news of Michael Jackson’s death. While we recognize the controversy that surrounded him and his music career, one cannot doubt his impact on popular culture throughout the world. You didn’t have to be a fan of his to know who Michael Jackson was. With all that said, enjoy a Michael Jackson Medley brought to you by SFSU’s own MissCarolinexoxo!
Yes, it is finals week for those of us at San Francisco State University! Some may have finished finals already, or at this very second you are in the middle of an all-nighter, or you’re getting ready for the very last day of your very last final for the Spring 09 school year (or maybe your entire college career). In any case, we would like to offer you some study music to help push you towards that finish line. From Monument to Masses is a band that started in 2001 one here in the Bay Area and includes former LFS-SFSU member, Sergio Robledo-Maderazo. He currently organizes with Liwanag Kultural Center in Daly City. They just finished up a month-long cross-country tour promoting their new album, “On Little Known Frequencies”. Check out this offering, and all their other live performances on youtube. Enjoy!!!
So our semester is winding down and we’re hitting those books preparing for finals. But while we’re drinking our coffee/ energy drinks and staying up until the wee hours of the morning finishing papers and studying for tests, we can’t forget the reasons why we do the work. The motivations that get us up in the morning to go to school/ meetings/ events/ etc. LFS would like to inject some nationalistic music to go along with those energy drinks to help stimulate all your senses. Today’s song is brought to you by Deep Foundation out of the East Coast and features numerous emcees, including BAYAN-USA Deputy Sec. Gen. Jack “Kiwi” De Jesus and Nomi from Power Struggle and ALAY (Active Leadership to Advance the Youth). Enjoy!
This past Monday, LFS- SFSU conducted an educational discussion on “Arts & Activism” and the use of cultural work within organizing. In order to understand how we can use culture and media (like blogs…) to advance the fight for National Democracy in the Philippines and the liberation of all struggling people, we have to analyze how its being used by our “enemies.”
Being in a free-market, capitalist society, we are fed images everyday. Most of these images are created to advance the financial interest of a corporation, conglomerate, financial entity, etc. In simpler terms, to make money. In our society, art and culture has been commodified to promote certain ideas of the dominant culture. The United States was very effective in doing this when it first colonized the Philippines and we even see it to this day.
One of the resources our facilitators used was a documentary called “Mickey Mouse Monopoly.” It is a critical look into Disney as a commercial/ cultural entity and certain ideas it has promoted and reinforced throughout its history. Disney is just one of the many outlets that has been set up to mold our thinking. Use this as a starting point to ask yourself critical questions about the media you see on the daily. Then compare it to the various examples of cultural work that our movement is trying to promote (see LFS Music Breaks). Enjoy!
First off, we would like to thank all of you who came and supported the 7th Annual Diwang Pinay! We were proud to support and showcase many of our community’s talented artists. It’s important that we help cultivate and provide a space for our artists to present their skills to the community, while educating ourselves on the important issues we face. With that said, for this music break, we’d like to show one of this weekend’s performers. Props to Caroline and the many talented folks who performed Sunday! Hopefully we’ll get to see you perform again soon! And support independent artists!!!
For the JUFRAN workshop two weeks ago, we showed the interns a documentary called “That the Mountains May Chant the Truth”. It talked about the human rights situation in the context of the Cordillera region of the Philippines. Two summers ago, members of LFS’ Baliksambayanan Exposure Trip integrated with the Cordillera Peoples Alliance. There they saw for themselves the struggle indigenous people in the Philippines face. They’re fighting to preserve their culture, their land, and their people. Unfortunately, those are the same reasons why activists are being targeted and organizations like CPA face repression from their own government. This entry was written by JUFRANian Ian Conde, who is also a member of Anakbayan- East Bay.
Hello,
As much the ND (National Democratic) Movement here in the United States is moving in support of the movement back home in the motherland, the cause is rooted deeper back home. The different sectors are exploited. Women. Youth/Students. Workers. Peasants. When we all watched the video from the CPA (Cordilleras People’s Alliance) all I can ever really think of was the STK (Stop The Killings) Campaign waged by BAYAN USA. I wear two pins on my backpack to not only show them off as an accessory, but a way to show people what I’m about. I get the occasional “what are those pins for?” & I can tell them with full confidence what they’re for, where I got them, & why I have them on. As I mentioned the enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings have been escalated ever since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office in the RP (Republic of the Philippines.) We may feel anger as our first impulsive emotion when we see videos that are really good at agitating an issue, but as the quote in the video says
“Turning silence into song,”
