The New America this time will be the better America. Now that we know who the enemy is because the enemy has legitimately taken over all the institutions we have suspected of being not in our interests, the interests of peace, love, and understanding. All the political philosophies from Marxism to Fascism try and direct our lives in such a way that we always have to leave something behind, some integral piece of the puzzle of living in any society, a society that represents the best of us and the worst of us.
We are not perfect by any means but in a society where humility isn't even considered a positive trait because the humble get erased by those who outwardly seek power and money. In a society where seeking peace is the ultimate in futility because we are a society of weapons makers, users, and abusers. In a society where wanting to be free from hate is asking too much as the hate rises to the top of the political heap.
No, we are not perfect by any means. One of the good things is those of us who are humble, seek peace, want to be free, we are so many, so much more than any of those who who want to oppress us. We are durable, tough minded, and in this new America we have learned the lessons of the past. We will not build the ovens.
Various commentary about the condition of the world as interpreted by twists and turning, mostly left.
Race, Class, Hate, Coming Together
I'm Forwarding this to the blog as an intelligent precursor to the type of discussions that must prevail if progressive americans are going to finally lead anyone away from what the media, political parties and haters and what they want us to believe. The next revolution will be more about who we are as human beings, our commonality, our desire to love and simply raise our children, love our partners, and do the work we want and need to do in order to be apart of this society. tb
For those who don't know Andre Taylor: his older brother Che Taylor was killed by Seattle police last February, and
shortly after that Andre founded the Seattle group Not This Time.
Here are Andre's very wise thoughts in brief:
"[People say
about Trump supporters] They don't like Black people. They want Latinos
gone... Well, I reject that idea. I'm insulted, really, by that idea,
especially from what we might consider white progressives, liberals. It's a
dangerous game that you're playing. To just discount millions of people... I
know what being overlooked looks like. I know what being disenfranchised looks
like... As an African-American male, I'm in a position to recognize it when I
see it. What I see is individuals that have given this political process time
and have seen over and over again how it has not benefited them and their
families and their children. They would rather blow the whole thing up and
start over, and if Trump is that vehicle in which to do that, I believe they
feel like we're going to take this chance for change. If we had the numbers as
African-Americans, I believe we would try to do the same thing."
You can, and
should, watch Andre's full five minute video statement here: https://www.facebook.com/andreltaylor/videos/10155394608254622/?permPage=1
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey would observe:
In Boston, in 1980, I had the privilege of hearing 1960's US civil rights leader Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Charmichael) speak along with Northern Ireland's civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.
It was just four years after the Pulitzer Prize winning picture "The Soiling of Old Glory" was captured at the height of the Boston busing struggle (where Irish American kids attacked African American kids).
The picture taught us many things, not the least of which was that American patriotism is inextricably entangled with racism and that some 321 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line virulent racism thrives in chilly climes.
In Boston, in 1980, I had the privilege of hearing 1960's US civil rights leader Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Charmichael) speak along with Northern Ireland's civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.
It was just four years after the Pulitzer Prize winning picture "The Soiling of Old Glory" was captured at the height of the Boston busing struggle (where Irish American kids attacked African American kids).
The picture taught us many things, not the least of which was that American patriotism is inextricably entangled with racism and that some 321 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line virulent racism thrives in chilly climes.
In different language, at a different time, these people were stating what
Andre Taylor stated yesterday. This should never be interpreted as an argument
for ignoring racism, or even an argument for somehow making racism a secondary
concern. It is an argument for understanding racism -- most certainly
institutional racism (a term first developed by Kwame Ture) -- not
as a product of human failing, or inherent tribalism, or simple hatred, but
rather as a product of those who seek to gain and maintain economic advantage.
It is also an argument for confronting and fighting the people that eat many a
fatted calf and not the ones that get some extra leftover grain.
People often argue abstract and theoretical positions, and some will say "Well
that's all fine and well to debate class, but the racist, homophobic,
misogynists are real and they want to hurt us and take our rights from us."
But what is abstract and theoretical became very real for me and 15 other black
and white teenagers/very young adults in 1971 on an American Friends Service
Committee work camp in Fremont, Michigan. That summer we came to rebuild the
"homes" of a small community of African Americans who arrived in
Newaygo County in the late 1930's and early 1940's, at the peak of the Great
Migration of African Americans from the south. They came to work in the Gerber
Products factory, and were settled in houses which the US government started to
build but stopped when World War II started, leaving people to live underground
in tar papered concrete basements with no running water, no toilets, no sewage
system.
Newaygo County was less than 1% African American, and we were faced with the most in-your-face virulent racism on a daily basis: motorcycle gangs that attacked us and tried hard to provoke violent confrontations, we were thrown out of bars for inter-racial dancing, local construction workers volunteering with us refused to let the African American campers into their cars, and attacks on the school we slept at. There was nothing abstract or theoretical about the white Fremont resident who once came to our defense and had his head caved in with a very large open-end wrench. What to do in a situation like that: fight back, debate intersectional politics, lecture on institutional racism, challenge folks to explore their implicit biases (actually 99.9% of the bias was quite explicit), explain the Quaker principles of non-violence, boycott the work, run away to safety? We did what was surely the hardest thing: stayed and worked for nine weeks, strictly adhering to the principles of non-violence we committed to that summer, and every day learning new ways to navigate the racism that confronted us and constrained our work. It was hard work to get the local white construction workers just to eat lunch with both the black and white kids in the group. Eventually those workers let everyone ride in their trucks, they listened to the black kid from Mississippi tell his story of watching armed Klansmen break into his home to lynch his father (because the kid was the first in his area to go to an all white school; his dad was saved by his mom and a shotgun), they came to our parties, and hugged a black person for the first time at the end on nine weeks when it was time to go. These "rednecks" donated their tools and sweat to rebuild the homes of African Americans in their community. Everyone benefited and grew that summer, except the racist bikers who never stopped threatening and doing violence -- but at the end of the summer we defeated them in a way that violence never could have.
Sometimes you have to meet people where they are as opposed to forcibly dragging them to where you are (or think you are). There was no point fighting the people who got some extra leftover grain.
When the children and grandchildren of those workers from Newaygo County lost their homes and savings after 2008, and no one came to help them rebuild, 67% of them voted for Trump. And, racist or not, I still think they would come to the aid of their African American neighbors like their forebear's did 45 years ago.
Newaygo County was less than 1% African American, and we were faced with the most in-your-face virulent racism on a daily basis: motorcycle gangs that attacked us and tried hard to provoke violent confrontations, we were thrown out of bars for inter-racial dancing, local construction workers volunteering with us refused to let the African American campers into their cars, and attacks on the school we slept at. There was nothing abstract or theoretical about the white Fremont resident who once came to our defense and had his head caved in with a very large open-end wrench. What to do in a situation like that: fight back, debate intersectional politics, lecture on institutional racism, challenge folks to explore their implicit biases (actually 99.9% of the bias was quite explicit), explain the Quaker principles of non-violence, boycott the work, run away to safety? We did what was surely the hardest thing: stayed and worked for nine weeks, strictly adhering to the principles of non-violence we committed to that summer, and every day learning new ways to navigate the racism that confronted us and constrained our work. It was hard work to get the local white construction workers just to eat lunch with both the black and white kids in the group. Eventually those workers let everyone ride in their trucks, they listened to the black kid from Mississippi tell his story of watching armed Klansmen break into his home to lynch his father (because the kid was the first in his area to go to an all white school; his dad was saved by his mom and a shotgun), they came to our parties, and hugged a black person for the first time at the end on nine weeks when it was time to go. These "rednecks" donated their tools and sweat to rebuild the homes of African Americans in their community. Everyone benefited and grew that summer, except the racist bikers who never stopped threatening and doing violence -- but at the end of the summer we defeated them in a way that violence never could have.
Sometimes you have to meet people where they are as opposed to forcibly dragging them to where you are (or think you are). There was no point fighting the people who got some extra leftover grain.
When the children and grandchildren of those workers from Newaygo County lost their homes and savings after 2008, and no one came to help them rebuild, 67% of them voted for Trump. And, racist or not, I still think they would come to the aid of their African American neighbors like their forebear's did 45 years ago.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey gave a lecture two months ago which revisits these
issues 37 years after she spoke in Boston. The first half of the lecture
focuses on the current conditions in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland
peace process. She argues "protect us from the con-men who have
corporatized and sell the Northern Ireland peace process to the rest of the
world." Very worth watching.
The second half
-- from time 32:55 on
-- is about how people end up turning against each other in battles for the
equality of injustice, the equality of poverty, and the equality of misconception,
i.e., battles which end up being about how to make us suffer equally rather
than battles to enfranchise and empower all.
Mandatory viewing
at a time like this.
Some thoughts on how we can do the very necessary work in the months ahead so that someone else doesn't have to re-post these same videos and arguments 37 years from now?
Slash and Burn- Another Anachronistic Politic
During the next two months think about what the future will look like, will feel like on a rudderless skiff in a hurricane sea.
Slash and Burn Politics-Post Election Civility
Slash and Burn Politics-Post Election Civility
Today You Voted
This is an unoriginal piece written back in 2010 by Brainiac whoever that is, while I was perusing the photos of handshaking the tyrants, a good exercise to rejuvenate, reactivate the knowledge that what happened a few days ago, now referred to by the media as "that thing that happened on Tuesday, Nov 8, 2016" is probably a good case of Karma for everyone involved, a Karma that is certainly going to carry me through the rest of my life, Part 2, like The Election of 1968, Part 1, carried me this far.
It's a whole New World Order. So maybe you can read this and laugh at yourself for being such a sucker. Sober up and take off your dancing shoes.
It's a whole New World Order. So maybe you can read this and laugh at yourself for being such a sucker. Sober up and take off your dancing shoes.
Today You Voted
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