The Blue Sky Rebellion book for young men by Jack Kammer

Heroes of the Blue Sky Rebellion ages 13 to 23

“Freedom from.” The Blue Sky Rebellion can help you win freedom from the outmoded rules and mind games that people use to control you because you’re male. Most of those mind games are based on making you feel insecure about yourself. And most of the rules are based on sexist biases, prejudices and stereotypes about boys and young men. Second: “Freedom to.” The Blue Sky Rebellion can help you have the freedom to do what you want to do, feel what you really feel, be who you really are, and act as you think best for you and your life. It PREFACE: IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU? xvi can bolster your Confidence, Pride, Integrity and Optimism about yourself as a male. In short, this book can help you stay true to yourself, help you make your world a friendlier place and help you prepare fo

A coalition of advocates for boys and men worked for nearly eight years to have President Obama establish a White House Council on Boys and Men. For nearly eight years we were ignored.

The Blue Sky Rebellion right now is what the modern Women’s Movement was in 1840. The Blue Sky Rebellion right now is what the Civil Rights Movement was in 1947. The Blue Sky Rebellion right now is what the Gay Liberation Movement was in 1968. The Blue Sky Rebellion right now is not much. It is only an idea. What the Blue Sky Rebellion becomes depends on what you and your young male friends make of it.

This is the idea: You and other young men are in some ways severely restricted in who and how you can be. Those restrictions are based on old and unnecessary stereotypes very much like the ones that operated against the freedom and happiness of women, African-Americans and gays. (Have you ever wanted or needed to say or do something, but you couldn’t because it would have been considered “weak” or “punk”?) You and your male peers are often victims of discrimination motivated and rationalized by biases and double standards, much like the bigoted ideas that allowed women, African-Americans and gays to be mistreated. (Have you ever seen a boy and a girl do something “bad” together, while it is the boy who is more severely blamed and punished?) Adult men, for reasons we will talk about later, have not launched a meaningful movement to help you. So it is up to you and your friends to talk candidly about the problems in your life that require change. It is up to you to make sure those changes happen. The Blue Sky Rebellion is only an idea. But it might also be one of the most powerful forces on earth — an idea whose time has come: a social movement of boys and young men, along with Allies you will find and cultivate, to identify and address the ways sexism operates against you. The name of the Blue Sky Rebellion comes from the following fable. 3 A Tale of One Island How the Blue Sky Rebellion Began Once, in the middle of the ocean, there was an island wi

Principles of The Blue Sky Rebellion 1. The Blue Sky Rebellion will make the world better for everyone. 2. The Blue Sky Rebellion aims to make sure that you and your young male friends feel happy, healthy, fairly treated and appreciated now and for the rest of your lives. 3. While traditional sex roles and gender expectations impose disadvantages on girls and young women, they also provide advantages. 4. While traditional sex roles and gender expectations provide advantages to you and your young male friends, they also impose disadvantages. 5. There are many negative stereotypes and biases about girls and young women. Girls and young women have benefited greatly from overcoming those ideas and the policies they generated. 6. There are many negative stereotypes and biases about you and your young male friends. You will benefit greatly from overcoming those ideas and the policies they generate. 7. You and your young male friends deserve the right to choose how you want to live your lives, with as many options for fulfillment and happiness as girls and young women enjoy. 8. You and your young male friends deserve as much love, affection, compassion and respect as girls and young women receive. 9. Change is difficult — especially for people who feel powerful with the world as it is — and nobody gives up power willingly… unless they get something better in return. It is therefore up to you to demonstrate the truth of Principle Number One. Heroes of the Blue Sky Rebellion for Boys and Young Men 13 to 23 by Jack Kammer How You and Other Young Men Can Claim All the Happiness in the World Heroes of the Blue Sky Rebel

Interview with a Young Chinese Climate Activist

Jun, an Unusual Chinese Climate Activist

Interviewed by Gayle Kimball

I know there is a climate crisis and I want to do something about it but people around me and my friends don’t understand. They think I’m crazy and if I continue to do this kind of thing they will just wish the worst on me. Police arrested me for something that I didn’t do and because of that my friends and my family don’t speak to me anymore.

So you didn’t even do street action?

I didn’t even get to that, and the police came because they knew what you were thinking about?

Yes.

What kind of street action?

Just holding signs with words like, “Saving our Future” and there’s nothing illegal about it, but they think we’re being used by foreign organizations. They questioned us for eight hours for things that we haven’t done. They called my family and the place that I worked and now I’m pretty much alone and the people in my circle think I’m crazy.

Have you ever heard of the children’s story of the emperor’s new clothes?

Yes.

You’re like the little boy sees but everybody else goes along with propaganda and that’s really difficult because you see the truth that the planet is in danger.

Is there a community of supportive climate activists that you can spend time with?

Yes, but not inside China. This is sensitive politically and that may be the reason I may get arrested again just because I’m associated with these organizations outside China. Whatever they do outside China is fine but inside China it’s illegal.

Like Fridays for Future?

Yes, that’s illegal too.

Are there ways to work for the climate on the internet but not on the streets where you are physically visible? Is there a way to keep your principles and activist without putting yourself in danger?

I guess I should do some disruptive kind of thing and get arrested to get the attention of the press. I’m not brave enough to do that. I guess I’m just weak.

I don’t think it’s a weakness, I think it’s reasonable because the question is, how much good can you do in jail?

That’s the point, because what if I do something and get arrested then what? That’s a sacrifice for nothing. I’m disappointed with myself and it’s getting harder and harder like I don’t know what I’m doing. Knocking on strangers’ doors and showing them the stuff we have printed out, then tell them this is a climate crisis and we should do this and that. That is not going to work, people are going to think I’m crazy and tell me to get out of their houses and there will be no point at all so I’m not doing it.

You have to be realistic because its not worth destroying your future.

Yeah. And the reality hurts too, if I choose to be realistic the reality is not pleasant at all. After work I’m depressed again and I drink and I smoke and maybe go to a bar or a pub. The question going through my mind over and over again is what am I doing with my life? I’m just wasting time yet tomorrow I have to work again.

Right, you have to look at the greater good over the lesser and the greater good is that you don’t go to jail and ruin your livelihood, so we need to have common sense here.

People like me understand this crisis but we’re very few in China. It’s like you have a seat and you don’t sit on it. The sense of responsibility, you know. I have the opportunity to do something and I feel I have to do something.

If you look at the history of social change like Civil Rights, it takes a lot of people while one or two people is really hard to make a change. When they boycotted the buses in Montgomery, Alabama and sat in lunch counters, they had organizations behind them, lawyers and had training, and structures that you don’t have.

Sometimes I think me doing this climate activism is a way of me escaping my pain, so when that path is blocked I’m double depressed..

Can you help raise money to plant trees?  No, I don’t think I can help with that.

You think that everyone has a destiny, right? So my destiny is to learn how to love myself, how to deal with being abandoned but if I can’t do it because I’m not strong enough or I’m not built to dealing with things like that, what I’m I going to do?

Give yourself time and know its like peeling through the many layers of an onion and that it will be a lifetime process. Whatever our big lesson is it takes all your life to peel the onion so I would say just the fact that I’m alive I have succeeded today. Take it one day at a time.

Sometime inside China you just get arrested for no reason, maybe one post you put on social media, half an hour or so, the police are at your door knocking. And if you go to prison all the hard life you built collapses and whatever qualification certificate is invalid when you get out.

They ask you to have tea, right? Exactly, but sometimes they get a warrant and a bunch of strong man and you have to go with them. And they can search all my chat history.

Feminist Men More Sexual

https://theconversation.com/men-who-identify-as-feminists-are-having-more-and-more-varied-sex-158197?

Men who identify as feminists are having more — and more varied — sex

Max Stick, McMaster University

Seeking answers to these questions, we analyzed a sub-sample of self-identifying heterosexual men from a larger survey on sex and sexuality in Canada. The Sex in Canada survey is a nationally representative survey of Canadian adults. It asks questions not only about sexuality, but also about personal sexual behaviours, sexual history and political and social values

Of all the straight Canadian men surveyed, we found that only about 22 per cent of men actually identified as feminist. Most men, around 60 per cent, said they were not feminists, and about 18 per cent were “not sure.” And, as with feminist women in previous studies, feminist men were more likely to have higher levels of education.

Feminism = more sex

Taking a look at how recently men engage in certain sex acts, we found feminist men had more sex than non-feminist men. Specifically, feminist men reported having intercourse and both performing and receiving oral sex with women partners more recently than non-feminist men.

1 in 3 college students food insecure

April 5, 2021

https://theconversation.com/1-in-3-college-students-face-food-insecurity-expanding-snap-benefits-on-campus-will-help-stave-off-hunger-156360? 0hungerIt’s harder to learn when you are suffering from hunger or searching for your next meal.

But while around 30 million K-12 students in public schools are eligible for free or reduced lunch, it is a different matter when they leave. Many of those who graduate from high school and enroll in higher education institutions find they no longer have access to federal food programs.

The nation’s leading anti-hunger program for adults, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides food assistance to almost 44 million Americans. Only an estimated 18% of college students have been eligible for the program in recent years, with a low 3% actually receiving food assistance.

This may be changing. Congress recently passed legislation that included relief for the estimated one in three students who struggle with food insecurity. Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, college students who are enrolled at least half-time, many of whom were previously ineligible due to historical guidelines, may now be able to access SNAP.

French Student Activists

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/04/world/europe/france-student-union-unef-racism.html? Outspoken Student Union Positions Itself at the Vanguard of a Changing France

To its critics, the 114-year-old Unef is the incarnation of the American-inspired ideas that threaten France’s founding principles. Its leaders say it is the future.

Unef leaders Maryam Pougetoux, left, Quentin Bourgeon, center, and Adrien Liénard at a demonstration in Paris last month.Credit…

By Norimitsu Onishi and Constant Méheut

April 4, 2021

Lire en français

PARIS — A powerful government minister recently condemned it as an organization whose activities are racist and could lead to “fascism.” Lawmakers accused it of promoting “separatism” and of aligning with “Islamo-leftism” before demanding its dissolution.

France’s 114-year-old university student union, Unef, has a long history of drawing the ire of the political establishment — most notably over the years when it lobbied for the independence of the country’s most important colony, Algeria, or took to the streets against employment contracts for youths.

But the recent harsh attacks zeroed in on something that resonates just as deeply in a France struggling to adapt to social change: its practice of limiting some meetings to racial minorities to discuss discrimination.

In recent days, the controversy over Unef — its French acronym standing for the National Union of Students of France — spilled into a third week, melding with larger explosive debates roiling the country.

Rape Culture in UK Schools

By Megan Specia

April 1, 2021

LONDON — For weeks, the harrowing anonymous testimonies have poured in, one after another.

Accusations of sexual assault of girls as young as 9. Girls shamed by classmates after intimate photos were circulated without their consent. One girl was blamed by classmates after she reported being raped at a party.

On a platform called Everyone’s Invited, thousands of young women and girls in Britain have recently been sharing frank accounts of sexual violence, sexism and misogyny during their time as students — accusations of everything including criminal sexual attacks to coercive encounters to verbal harassment to unwanted touching — offering raw and unfiltered discussions of their personal trauma.

But when taken together, the accusations paint a troubling picture of widespread sexual violence by students both within the school walls and outside, particularly at parties. In addition to reports of violence, the accounts also included claims of sexism and misogyny.

“This is a real problem,” said Soma Sara, the 22-year-old Londoner who founded Everyone’s Invited. “Rape culture is real.”

Teen Girls Disparaged

Why Do We Hate Teen Girls So Much? Zulie Rane

Aug 27, 2020· https://bettermarketing.pub/the-viral-math-girl-from-tiktok-perfectly-encapsulates-what-its-like-to-be-female-online-f5bebbfb08a9

The flavor of hate Gracie Cunningham, accidental TikTok star, got was a very specific breed: the kind we display for One Direction fans, for Twilight stans, for pumpkin latte drinkers. The kind that only rears its head when a young woman expresses her opinions. I remember when I was a kid in school, I had a visceral fear of showing I liked “girly” things — pink, sparkles, selfies. Anything that was tied to female teendom was uncool. Likewise, the patterns of speech favored by young women are, typically just by association, deemed lesser. People who say “like” a lot are seen as more unintelligent, for example.

“I’m imagining a very memorable dialect that I’m sure we’re all familiar with, oftentimes (and, perhaps, erroneously) associated with caucasian females who enjoy the taste of pumpkin-flavored coffee,” says Roland Kratt, on the subject of if saying “like” too much is a sign of lesser intelligence.

The research backs me up: Women’s thoughts and contributions are more likely to be scorned, even when they’re just as valid as their male counterparts’.

Gracie’s video encapsulates everything that’s wrong about how we view teen girls. She asked valid questions, that actual philosophy professors don’t have answers for, that entire movies have been created about. But her questions weren’t seen as deep or worthy of consideration. She was just a dumb teenage girl, putting on makeup and asking foolish questions. Ultimately, Gracie, aka Math Girl, had her comeuppance: She went viral (and her second video went viral, too) with most people in her corner.

Gen C: the Covid kids

https://theconversation.com/generation-c-why-investing-in-early-childhood-is-critical-after-covid-19-157095?

Conversations are beginning about Generation C, the COVID-19 kids. While exactly which ages should be included in this generational label is under debate, what’s clear to researchers of child development is that COVID-19 has led to global shutdowns that have rattled economies, communities and families, and will affect children for years to come.

UNICEF reports the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of children and their families around the world, and that across virtually every key measure of childhood, progress has gone backward. The number of children who are hungry, isolated, abused, anxious and living in poverty has increased. Children’s access to learning environments, socialization, essential services, health, nutrition and protection has decreased.

Student Climate Activism Group

Bridge USA text Together 66866

he Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium: Beyond Doom and Gloom: Climate Solutions initiative invites students, staff, and faculty to contact their local officials regarding climate issues and to suggest sound climate policies. 
Changethechamber.org  is a grassroots initiative launched and led by students in response to how the United States’ government has made little to no progress in implementing responsible climate policy during our lifetimes.

WENDY OLMSTEAD, MPA, MS

Sustainability Coordinato

Resistant in Myanmar to Military Coup

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/world/asia/myanmar-coup-resistance-protests.html?March 24, 2021

Hannah Beech, I wlll Die Protecting My Country

In a jungle in the borderlands of Myanmar, the troops sweated through basic training. They learned how to load a rifle, pull the pin of a hand grenade and assemble a firebomb.

These cadets are not members of Myanmar’s military, which seized power last month and quickly imposed a battlefield brutality on the country’s populace. Instead, they are an eclectic corps of students, activists and ordinary office workers who believe that fighting back is the only way to defeat one of the world’s most ruthless armed forces.

“I see the military as wild animals who can’t think and are brutal with their weapons,” said a woman from Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, who was now in the forest for a week of boot camp. Like others who have joined the armed struggle, she did not want her name published for fear that the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, would target her.

“We have to attack them back,” she said. “This sounds aggressive, but I believe we have to defend ourselves.”

After weeks of peaceful protests, the frontline of Myanmar’s resistance to the Feb. 1 coup is mobilizing into a kind of guerrilla force. In the cities, protesters have built barricades to protect neighborhoods from military incursions and learned how to make smoke bombs on the internet. In the forests, they are training in basic warfare techniques and plotting to sabotage military-linked facilities.