Tonight I drank black cherry floats with Haitian-Creole refugees. One woman with a red badanna over her grey braids proudly showed me how she can now count to ten. The last time I visited we each had tears in our ears because she wrote her name for the first time in her fifty some years of life. The students from Haaay-tee ( I love the way they say the name of their country, it makes me melt inside) wear their jackets in class, heavy winter ones, even on days like today when it was sunny out and 60 degrees. I think this is because the climate is so very different where they're from and many of these folks haven't acclimated yet. In Caroline County you're driving along the backroads: farmfields, woods, farmfields, woods and swamp, farmfields. The swamps smell like sulfur and in the spring the farms are covered in cow shit. It doesn't matter though when it's bright out like today it still makes you smile where your heart is.
You're driving along, and then in the middle of a farmfield you turn right and then next thing you know you drive up on some projects. Lots of little kids out front, screaming and laughing and playing on the lawns and speaking fine english in the street in front of the Community Center. And inside their parents are in heavy winter coats drinking floats and learning to write their names.
Last night Jason, a coworker, sent this over email:
I was doing intake & assessment in Federalsburg today and when I asked the question "Why is getting your high school diploma important to you?" This person responded that it was because of something President Barack Obama said during his address to Congress in February. This person quoted word for word the portion of the speech in bold below. I included more of the text from that portion of the speech just to be sure it was not out of context and I felt it evoked an even more powerful response.
"It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American."
Jay goes on to point out that he is not a Democrat and didn't vote for Barrack. Which, though we've never discussed it I think I already knew from mild comments he's made before. Now politically I try to stay the hell out of it, part of this is because my politics would likely fall so left of radical that they’d circle back around again to the right and this sort of confuses people. But mostly because I think the system, so long as it is motivated by money, will never be based in integrity. So I consider it ethically, thus fundamentally, flawed, and find that debate usually is only ever about making oneself look mighty at the expense of debunking another's right to their own beliefs, and often never really about open-minded discourse. In fact, I find that once a person finds out a couple of my own beliefs they usually then assume they know me downright up and down, and so goes polarity and the lac of bridge-gapping. And in truth, most us humans want the same things, love and security, safety and wellness, to be treated kindly and with respect. I dont know it's all so sad to me sometimes, even though this pigeonholing, I do it, too, believe me!
I believe in deep and vigilant personal responsibility. Insofar as ethics go I believe this, if practiced, extends naturally in to social responsibility. Inner-principal-values walking, or ethos of matreo-centred agroegalitarian deep voodoo, (haha ooops there I go again confusing people.) But anyhow. Here is this guy, this buddy at work Jason, who openly admits he's not a democrat but who works vigilantly and committed and for stoopid piddly compensation as a student advocate. He is without question the number one resource in the county at least that I know of for social service referrals, and is this gentle easy-going teddy bear of a guy who is absolutely adored by his students and committed to what he does. But my favorite thing about him, now, would be his walking ability to totally bust my own extreme lines of political stereotyping and illusion just by being the change he wants to see. Card officially, though gentely, pulled. I am grateful. His walking fires in others the ability, the courage to do the same, as this email above states. And he's mellow as hell, too! Thank god for this, for people like him and our pal Kim, who keep it going and going. I can't say I'll do this forever, but so long as there's black cherry floats involved, and students who can quote their president, I'll get in the ring at least one more day.
And that my friends is as political as it gets.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
April 16, 2009
November 3, 2008
To a Guy I'll Name Owl or WHY I'M VOTING TOMORROW
Okay. I've held out long and hard on this one--I mean really, for someone wordy as I, I've really managed to stay away. But...
Tomorrow, of course, is election day. And I've gotta say, there are lots of reasons I've purposefully stayed uninvolved this year. The main one is that I think we are a nation of corruption and dishonesty, in a system that's broken, and I prefer to work on the grass-roots level in the local municipalities to put change that I can see in to action. I am disheartened, and have been, at the greed and shameless self-interest that masquerades in the Western world as the American Dream; at the excess of consumerism that we value under the label of Freedom, at the mindless circle that this system has created and at the personal powerless that strikes me whenever I look bluntly at the truth: that I, too, live as part of this lifestyle. That I can't not.
We as a people for the first time ever have the economic, intellectual and technological resources to feed every person the world over, to cloth every one, to see children educated and housed. And yet we don't. This is astounding to me. Simply, quite bone-baring common-sensical dumbfoundedly simple: why don't we, as a basic human species, take care of each other? Period. There is absolutely no excuse not to. This is just common sense people. Ethical evolution, it's the final frontier, it's the only one that truly matters. It's what will save us. Or, if continued to lack, will finally break us.
The rest of it is just pundit powwow and bullshit.
This leads me to my opinion on tomorrow, and to why I am voting, even though I think it's all broken and the whole sick "free"-market pillaging that we call "free-trade" backed as it is by bought politicians backed by corporate-funded lobbyists is nothing but a big, eye-rolling joke and not worth my energy. (There is no such thing as limitless anything. It does not exist. It is a scientifically impossible principle. Right down to the atom: equal parts negative and positive charges are what fire life. Everything has its balance. Capless "wealth" comes at the expense then of it's opposite, insatiable ravaging that quite literally sucks opportunity from the lowest classes in the most bottom of places, making millions of human lives, that is valuing humanity at a literally less than even average status quo--setting the standard of what is livable--what is HUMAN--at ten cents a day in the factories overseas that finance our vainglory. It sucks, it is disgusting, and that I am a living part of it, if I think too much about it, MAKES ME SICK.) So yeah, though I think that operating within this heartless system is pointless, here is why I am going to vote tomorrow:
Martin Luther King. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and his death almost single-handedly stopped in its tracks the momentous roll of the Civil Rights Movement, on the public front. Here's the deal gang. We hear these phrases in this country, like "Black" History or The "Women's" Rights Movement and we take for granted that special interests or movements have all but taken care of themselves, that they are polarized subsets and exist in isolated bans that are far away from us. And so long as we think that, it is true. But the truth is this: Black History, Women's History, this is OUR history. If you are alive and a citizen of the US today then the history of black slavery and subjugation and of the slow and powerful rise of an entire community of Americans from this degraded state is a part of YOUR history too, as an American. If you are an American than the story of the suffragettes and the Equal Rights Amendment that guarantees women the same rights as men and that HAS NOT BEEN PASSED even though it has come up in every congress since 1920!! is a part OF YOUR HISTORY. Period. And if you believe in change, if you believe you can be the change, as King did, as his hero Ghandi taught, or as Lucretia Mott did, or Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or Sarah Palin, each of whom are changing the myth of America by the action, judged good or bad who cares, that each of them are taking--then you are alive and there's hope, there's still a fighting chance out there. To be the change. And to continue to evolve this story of us Americans. Of how good we can be, one by one. These stories aren't over, black history or women's history or our history, all of us, as a Nation, divided but one because the very concept of equality inherently implies differences and thank god for that. I will vote because at the end of the day we all are very different. We all are varied and many in all our beliefs. But thank god we can fight to tell and continue to evolve our stories, our history. Thank god for the many of us still devoted to being the change and for the opportunity to talk about it, to try, if we choose, to live it a little out loud---
at least the hell I've still got the right to actively, and out loud, be that change. So I'll vote for the hope of it, for the power of it, for what I will continue in my heart to believe is right.
Tomorrow, of course, is election day. And I've gotta say, there are lots of reasons I've purposefully stayed uninvolved this year. The main one is that I think we are a nation of corruption and dishonesty, in a system that's broken, and I prefer to work on the grass-roots level in the local municipalities to put change that I can see in to action. I am disheartened, and have been, at the greed and shameless self-interest that masquerades in the Western world as the American Dream; at the excess of consumerism that we value under the label of Freedom, at the mindless circle that this system has created and at the personal powerless that strikes me whenever I look bluntly at the truth: that I, too, live as part of this lifestyle. That I can't not.
We as a people for the first time ever have the economic, intellectual and technological resources to feed every person the world over, to cloth every one, to see children educated and housed. And yet we don't. This is astounding to me. Simply, quite bone-baring common-sensical dumbfoundedly simple: why don't we, as a basic human species, take care of each other? Period. There is absolutely no excuse not to. This is just common sense people. Ethical evolution, it's the final frontier, it's the only one that truly matters. It's what will save us. Or, if continued to lack, will finally break us.
The rest of it is just pundit powwow and bullshit.
This leads me to my opinion on tomorrow, and to why I am voting, even though I think it's all broken and the whole sick "free"-market pillaging that we call "free-trade" backed as it is by bought politicians backed by corporate-funded lobbyists is nothing but a big, eye-rolling joke and not worth my energy. (There is no such thing as limitless anything. It does not exist. It is a scientifically impossible principle. Right down to the atom: equal parts negative and positive charges are what fire life. Everything has its balance. Capless "wealth" comes at the expense then of it's opposite, insatiable ravaging that quite literally sucks opportunity from the lowest classes in the most bottom of places, making millions of human lives, that is valuing humanity at a literally less than even average status quo--setting the standard of what is livable--what is HUMAN--at ten cents a day in the factories overseas that finance our vainglory. It sucks, it is disgusting, and that I am a living part of it, if I think too much about it, MAKES ME SICK.) So yeah, though I think that operating within this heartless system is pointless, here is why I am going to vote tomorrow:
Martin Luther King. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and his death almost single-handedly stopped in its tracks the momentous roll of the Civil Rights Movement, on the public front. Here's the deal gang. We hear these phrases in this country, like "Black" History or The "Women's" Rights Movement and we take for granted that special interests or movements have all but taken care of themselves, that they are polarized subsets and exist in isolated bans that are far away from us. And so long as we think that, it is true. But the truth is this: Black History, Women's History, this is OUR history. If you are alive and a citizen of the US today then the history of black slavery and subjugation and of the slow and powerful rise of an entire community of Americans from this degraded state is a part of YOUR history too, as an American. If you are an American than the story of the suffragettes and the Equal Rights Amendment that guarantees women the same rights as men and that HAS NOT BEEN PASSED even though it has come up in every congress since 1920!! is a part OF YOUR HISTORY. Period. And if you believe in change, if you believe you can be the change, as King did, as his hero Ghandi taught, or as Lucretia Mott did, or Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or Sarah Palin, each of whom are changing the myth of America by the action, judged good or bad who cares, that each of them are taking--then you are alive and there's hope, there's still a fighting chance out there. To be the change. And to continue to evolve this story of us Americans. Of how good we can be, one by one. These stories aren't over, black history or women's history or our history, all of us, as a Nation, divided but one because the very concept of equality inherently implies differences and thank god for that. I will vote because at the end of the day we all are very different. We all are varied and many in all our beliefs. But thank god we can fight to tell and continue to evolve our stories, our history. Thank god for the many of us still devoted to being the change and for the opportunity to talk about it, to try, if we choose, to live it a little out loud---
at least the hell I've still got the right to actively, and out loud, be that change. So I'll vote for the hope of it, for the power of it, for what I will continue in my heart to believe is right.
June 12, 2008
I wish that was me...
Wow, these kids, or young adults, in Baltimore staged a hunger-strike recently in order to get mayor Sheila Dixon's attention and funding for a peer support group that the young people believe in and feel is necessary in order to turn around the futile, perpetuating state of violence and hopelessness in the inner city.
These kids are heroes, and I want to be like them. I want to have a heart big enough, strong enough and courageous enough to lay down. I wish I knew them, I wish I could be there with them, I wish I could call them my friends.
Read about it http://hiphopcongress.com/protesters-promise-hunger-strike-baltimore-press/
Mayor Dixon, to date, is typical in her bureaucratic rhetoric. Here are groups of local, dedicated citizens--and the youth at that!!--getting together and motivating and taking action! And the mayor's office says, It's a decision up to the school board. Right--aren't they supposed to be representative of the people? And are these kids likely to get their voice heard through those dog and pony show proceedings? If they were our city's school wouldn't be in the condition they are. Yet again this affirms my bitch that politics, on even the local level, supports only agenda and is not now, nor likely ever has been, ABOUT REPRESENTING US--I am incredulous over this, it is a simple common sense issue. Give these kids the time to have their voices heard and ideas grown... don't make it about waiting til election time so you all can shine your pretty gold belts.... What an insult. Amen to these young people with hope enough in them selves, with hope enough in Change, Amen to these young people and their tenacity to dream...
Poem for the Hunger Strikers, by Marge Piercy
The low road
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want. They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can’t fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fundraising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
These kids are heroes, and I want to be like them. I want to have a heart big enough, strong enough and courageous enough to lay down. I wish I knew them, I wish I could be there with them, I wish I could call them my friends.
Read about it http://hiphopcongress.com/protesters-promise-hunger-strike-baltimore-press/
Mayor Dixon, to date, is typical in her bureaucratic rhetoric. Here are groups of local, dedicated citizens--and the youth at that!!--getting together and motivating and taking action! And the mayor's office says, It's a decision up to the school board. Right--aren't they supposed to be representative of the people? And are these kids likely to get their voice heard through those dog and pony show proceedings? If they were our city's school wouldn't be in the condition they are. Yet again this affirms my bitch that politics, on even the local level, supports only agenda and is not now, nor likely ever has been, ABOUT REPRESENTING US--I am incredulous over this, it is a simple common sense issue. Give these kids the time to have their voices heard and ideas grown... don't make it about waiting til election time so you all can shine your pretty gold belts.... What an insult. Amen to these young people with hope enough in them selves, with hope enough in Change, Amen to these young people and their tenacity to dream...
Poem for the Hunger Strikers, by Marge Piercy
The low road
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want. They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can’t fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fundraising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
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