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“I could mention just one more thing… I have talked about it a great deal in the last few days: the administration of justice. Something is wrong with a society where, in the last four years, since 1960, twenty-six Negro and white Civil Rights workers have been murdered. In most cases, nothing has been done about it. Only one person has been convicted of murder. The others were not even convicted for murder, but, as in Montgomery the other day, the conviction was for conspiring to violate civil rights. The accused murderers of Rev. Reeb were released. We have got to go all out to deal with the question of segregation justice. We still have a long, long, way to go.”
--Martin Luther King Jr. (December 15, 1965)
#raremlk
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
"We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, 'God sent us by here to say that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.'"
--MLK Jr. (April 3, 1968)
#luminouslibrary
"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that's not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.
I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."
--Martin Luther King Jr., "The Drum Major Instinct" (February 1968)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
You're Invited to Drew Dellinger's Ph.D. Dissertation Defense!
Friday, April 27th, 2-4pm
CIIS -- California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission St., (between 10th & 11th) Room 306
San Francisco, CA
Open to the public! Come early; space is limited.
(This is the abstract for my doctoral dissertation. I am finishing a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion, with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, at CIIS -- the California Institute of Integral Studies.)
The Mountaintop Vision:
Martin Luther King’s Cosmology of Connection
This dissertation asserts that Martin Luther King Jr.’s social justice vision was based on a worldview of interconnection. This work examines cosmological and ecological dimensions of King’s thought that have been largely overlooked in previous King scholarship.
King’s vision connected racism with war and poverty, stressed the unity of peoples and movements around the planet, and recognized the interwoven nature of the universe, which he described as, “the interrelated structure of all reality.” His holistic view of the cosmos and society is the hallmark of what I call his Mountaintop Vision.
In the last years of his life, which I call his Mountaintop Period (1966-68), King identified systemic links between social justice issues that were largely viewed as separate, fusing them into a unified critique that fundamentally challenged the modern system. This work articulates six aspects of King’s Mountaintop Vision: (1) connecting justice to the cosmos, (2) emphasizing economic justice, (3) confronting systemic racism, (4) challenging U. S. militarism, (5) exemplifying the prophetic path, and (6) building a global movement.
King’s worldview constituted a cosmology of justice in which interdependence and compassion are woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself. In King’s view, “the universe is on the side of justice.”
This dissertation examines King’s speeches, sermons, and writings to demonstrate his vision of radical connection. I argue that King’s view of existence as a “network of mutuality,” in which “all life is interrelated,” should be recognized as an early expression of systems thinking and ecological consciousness. King’s Mountaintop Vision linked social justice, cosmology, and ecology in a way that may yet provide guidance for our future.
Drew Dellinger
©2012
"The unleashing of a voracious prison apparatus after the mid-1970s partakes of a broader restructuring of the state tending to criminalize poverty and its consequences so as to impress insecure, underpaid jobs as the modal employment situation of the unskilled segments of the postindustrial proletariat. The sudden hypertrophy of the penal state was thus matched and complemented by the planned atrophy of the social state."
--Loic Wacquant, "Class, Race & Hyperincarceration in Revanchist America" (2010)
"I am convinced that capitalism has seen its best days in American [sic], and not only in America, but in the entire world.... It has failed to meet the needs of the masses.... There is a definite move away from capitalism, ... capitalism finds herself like a losing football team in the last quarter trying all types of tactics to survive."
--Martin Luther King Jr., hand-written notes on capitalism (1951)
#raremlk
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
"One of the remarkable things about Occupy is how kind people are to each other. As I have at other protests here, I met many good and decent people with whom I had great conversations. Most of these people really care about the state of our world, and have embraced this movement with gratitude for having a place where they can figure out ways to take that caring and turn it into tangible action.
I point this out because no matter what the mainstream media says about Saturday’s action, there’s a big piece of the story that can only be absorbed by walking with these people and getting to know them. The heart of Occupy Oakland is so good. It’s been a bit broken by all the repressive police actions, ranging from waging war on the Occupiers the day of the first raid, to arresting people for things as petty as taking a blanket out of a garbage can. In spite of all the attempts to break the the movement’s heart and destroy it, it continues on, beating strongly and moving forward."
--Kevin Army, from his article in Salon.
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"The day has passed for superficial patriotism."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (April 30, 1967)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
#raremlk
In honor of today's national holiday clebrating Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, here's a video of some recent remarks I made at Darrin Drda's book release party.
"I saw Martin do things that truly made my flesh shake on my bones… That’s how I really got with him. I began to feel like he was a man who really was living what he preached. I’ve seen Martin, knowing how bad the Klan wanted him, I’ve seen him do things no normal man could do."
--Hosea Williams
(speaking about the campaign in St. Augustine, FL, 1964)
#luminouslibrary
"All I know is that when I see white people regularly yelling at police officers then something good is happening. I know it is easy to be snarktastic, but why do it with the Occupy Movement? There are plenty of things to snark about that don't involve the oppression of the poor. Do yourself a favor. Be on the right side of history."
--W. Kamau Bell
Read the article here.
Matt Taibbi nails it.
Excerpt:
"What happened at UC Davis was the inevitable result of our failure to make sure our government stayed in the business of defending our principles. When we stopped insisting on that relationship with our government, they became something separate from us."
--Matt Taibbi
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Glen Greenwald hits the nail on the head. Here's an excerpt:
"The intent and effect of such abuse is that it renders those guaranteed freedoms meaningless. If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed — or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet — many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power. That’s a natural response, and it’s exactly what the climate of fear imposed by all abusive police state actions is intended to achieve: to coerce citizens to “decide” on their own to be passive and compliant — to refrain from exercising their rights — out of fear of what will happen if they don’t.
The genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest."
--Glen Greenwald
I just picked up a cool new book, Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence.
by Quinton Dixie and Peter Eisenstadt
Check it out.
"We are not going to allow any military industrial complex to control this country."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1968, ten days before his assassination)
"The dispossessed of this nation--the poor, both white and Negro--live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1967)
"Let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice.... Now we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that."
--Martin Luther King Jr., April 3, 1968
I was honored to have Joel Olson as a guest speaker in a class I taught at Prescott College in the late '90s. Later I heard him speak in the bay area about his excellent book, "The Abolition of White Democracy."
I respect Joel and his scholoarship immensely. Check out his recent article, "Whiteness and the 99%."
Occupy Wall Street Drew Dellinger
We need global
citizens for some sit-ins
again.
I say we all meet
on Wall Street
and lock down--
lock the whole block down!
[Drew Dellinger, 2001]
I take exception to the rule
of the greedy and the cruel.
This fall, school’s in session
and the lesson is Wall Street.
It’s time for action
and your name’s on the call sheet.
It’s time we all meet
and name what it is:
the game has been rigged
to enrich corporate
business interests that sent this economy spinning.
Charlie Sheen is not the only clueless dude that thinks he’s winning.
See, the one percent done spent all the rent.
And now the rent’s due, so we’re coming to a tent near you.
We’re the like-minded ninety-nine percent
standing up to corruption with loving dissent.
We stand for justice,
and the future,
and all of humanity.
Embracing all people.
Yes, even Sean Hannity.
The message is simple:
greed, injustice, and eco-destruction have to go.
Pay attention corporate media. We’ll try to say it slow.
It’s time to
rock the nation,
rock this occupation.
It’s time for the people to peacefully fight back.
Tell Congress and the media we’re taking the mic back.
Tell the jaded it’s that long-awaited revolution.
Put away the pepper spray and re-read the Constitution.
These cops are paid to go crazy, yo.
But we’re peaceful.
Don’t tase me, bro.
We came to incite insight,
unite and discuss this.
We came to hang, and to bang the drums of justice.
Let’s occupy
with our love and our light.
Let’s occupy
the earth and the sky,
and live with all beings
as a planet-wide tribe.
Occupy the divine mind residing inside.
See, I’m the type writer
that’s known to light fires
and prone to inspire
the moment’s own higher desire.
‘Cause history knows it’s the time
for resisting the team at the scene of the crime.
Tell your friends I’ll meet ‘em there at Freedom Square.
They can’t stop us, from Seattle to Chiapas.
It’s our mission to envision
what comes after the catastrophe.
How do we move past
the capitalist disaster?
Our communities need us.
We are all leaders.
How could we ask for anything less than the future?
--Drew Dellinger
(October 13, 2011) www.planetizethemovement.org #OWS copyright c 2011
A great spiritual leader has passed. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, known for his fearlessness, initiated the Birmingham Campaign that turned the tide of the nation and led directly to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Civil Rights Act.
In 1956, after 16 sticks of dynamite blew off the corner of his house and literally blasted him out of bed, he was never again afraid. "It took the fear out of me and it made me know that god saved me to lead the fight so that I was never fearful after that."
"To me, cosmology and empire are antithetical. Empire becomes a cosmology. It's a pseudo-cosmology."
--Matthew Fox
(Nov. 4, 2004. From the journals of Drew Dellinger)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”
--Martin Luther King Jr.
from I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King Jr., Hoskins, ed. (1968)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
Will Palin run, and if so, will she wear an "I'm too pretty to do homework" shirt?
"In this extraordinary endeavor to create the country called America, a great many crimes were committed. And I want to make it absolutely clear, or as clear as I can, that I understand perfectly well that crime is universal, and as old as mankind, and I trust, therefore, that no one will assume that I am indicting or accusing. I'm not any longer interested in the crime. Peope treat each other very badly and always have and very probably always will. I'm not talking about the crime; I'm talking about denying what one does. This is a much more sinister matter."
--James Baldwin, "The White Problem" (1964)
"Whenever the government provides opportunities and privileges for white people and rich people they call it ‘subsidies.’ When they do it for Negro and poor people they call it ‘welfare.’ The fact is that everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of ninety percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem."
--Martin Luther King Jr.
Miami, FL
U.S. in a nutshell: People cheer when Carlos Santana speaks the truth through his guitar; people boo when he speaks the truth about racism.
"The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is, rather, forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws: racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systematic rather than superficial flaws, and it suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1967)
"There aren't enough white persons in our country who are willing to cherish democratic principles over privilege."
--Martin Luther King Jr.
"For years now, large numbers of prominent scientists have been warning, with increasing urgency, that if we continue with business as usual, the results will be very bad, perhaps catastrophic. They could be wrong. But if you’re going to assert that they are in fact wrong, you have a moral responsibility to approach the topic with high seriousness and an open mind. After all, if the scientists are right, you’ll be doing a great deal of damage."
--Paul Krugman,
April 4, 2011
"The important thing about Jesus to me was one little line: He went about doing good. He went about doing good. Not simply talking it, but doing it; not reading about it, doing it; not repeating some worn-out cliches, but doing good."
--Rev. C.T. Vivian
(Quoted in Moldovan, 1999)
February 11, 2011 MSNBC anchor, Tamron Hall, speaking to Egyptian opposition leader, Moustafa El Gindy, on Egyptian Independence Day:
Tamron Hall: You used the word 'dream.' Did you ever imagine this dream of the leadership being ousted there could actually happen in the hardest days that we've watched?
Moustafa El Gindy: Yes. Yes, I dreamed. Yes, I will keep on dreaming and I will teach my kids to dream. Yes, I was one of not-a-lot of people who still had hope. And I was telling them, 'Believe in your country. Believe in your country.' I will teach my kids to dream. Anybody that I will meet, I will tell them, 'dream.' Dream means you live. Dream is life. And we will dream. We are 5000 years old civilization and we are still dreaming, and we will keep on dreaming. Egypt is a dreamland. Like America is a dreamland, Egypt is a dreamland."
[News Nation with Tamron Hall, MSNBC, Feb. 11, 2011]
"These persons gain prominence and power by the dissemination of false ideas, and by deliberately appealing to the deepest hate responses within the human mind."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1957)
"Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today...the cry is always the same -- "We want to be free."
--Martin Luther King Jr., April 3, 1968
"However clearly we may think this or the other doctrine to be deduced from Scripture, we ought not therefore to impose it upon others...unless we would be content also that other doctrines should be imposed upon us in the same manner."
--John Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration
"The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central. This is no ordinary achievement."
--Howard Thurman (1949)
To: Team Palin
From: Aristotle
Re: "Blood Libel"
"It is useful to have examined the number of meanings of a term...for clearness' sake (for a person is more likely to know what it is he asserts, if it has been made clear to him how many meanings it may have)."
"We ought to use our terms to mean the same things as most people mean by them."
--Aristotle
Why do the Republicans hate our economy?
"We spend far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding."
--Martin Luther King Jr., at Drew University, Feb. 5, 1964
Gays and lesbians are serving in the military. The only question is whether they will do so with, or without, their full human rights.
"Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace."
--Benedict de Spinoza, Political Treatise (1677)
Where there is secrecy, there is no democracy.
Dear John McCain, You aren't blocking repeal of DADT because you're still mad about The Village People's "In the Navy" song, are you?
Still Love This! The capacity to name our experience is a quintessential power of art, as well as politics. WATCH HERE
Jon Stewart complains about dismissive coverage of the Tea Party, versus the anti-war movement. Uh, Jon, the media have given almost zero coverage to the anti-war movement for seven years. Despite the tens of millions involved, the peace movement has received a sliver of the coverage that's been heaped on the Tea Party.
They said that sacrifice was needed, so 5000 troops must give up their lives.
They said that sacrifice was necessary, so 1 million Iraqi civilians had to die.
They said we all must sacrifice, and trade privacy and liberty for unprecedented surveillance.
They said we have to all pitch in, and bail out the reckless bankers on Wall Street.
They said we have to sacrifice, the planet, our climate, the future.
But when the very wealthiest are asked to simply let the Bush tax cuts expire as planned, the sacrifice suddenly seems to be too much, their answer: ‘not a chance!’
Medea Benjamin explains why I can't get excited about Jon Stewart's rally.
"If we can put America back to work, we can pull America back together." --Van Jones, lecture at Princeton University
David Ray Griffin "One way the Bush administration prevented public questioning of the official account of 9/11 was by presenting it as a sacred story, so that any questioning of it would be regarded as not only unpatriotic but also sacrilegious."
--David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited
From Bob Herbert's column in The New York Times, May, 29, 2010:
"The oil companies and other giant corporations have a stranglehold on American policies and behavior, and are choking off the prospects of a viable social and economic future for working people and their families....
It's not just a cozy relationship [between oil companies and the federal government]. It's an unholy alliance. And that alliance includes not just the oil companies but the entire spectrum of giant corporations that have used vast wealth to turn democratically elected officials into handmaidens, thus undermining not just the day-to-day interests of the people but the very essence of democracy itself.
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"And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis."
--Tim Wise, on white privilege in the Tea Party
Have you heard about the Nevada candidate for US Senate, Sue Lowden, who has proposed that we emulate our grandparents and pay for healthcare by bartering livestock?
(For background, cluck here.)
This 'chicken for a CAT scan' nonsense reminds me of the poignant scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird," when Mr. Cunningham sheepishly repays Atticus Finch's legal fees with a sack of hickory nuts. (Some internet satirist should dig up that clip.)
It's not that bartering is, in itself, ridiculous. In fact, I'm all for local, alternative economies. But the idea that this is a solution for the catastrophic rise in health care costs, or a viable option for patients in desperate need, is laughable. It shows how disconnected the Republicans are from reality.
How would this play out in real life? Can I trade you this celery for some chemotherapy? A turnip in exchange for treating my tumor? It sounds like an SNL skit.
The proposal is unserious, stupid and callous.
It's like when Sen. Tom Coburn responded to a woman in financial and medical crisis by saying neighbors should help one another. A noble sentiment, but when was the last time you knocked on a neighbor's door and asked, "Can I borrow $168,000 for a lung transplant?"
"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat."
--General Stanley A. McChrystal, senior American and NATO commander in Afganistan
I think it is true, as someone said recently, that as brilliant as Obama is as a communicator, the administration has too often lost control of the narrative in this first year, or ceded control of the narrative to others.
It's been distressing to see the most lunatic narratives gaining power in these fearful and anxious and economically desparate times. And to see the right wing's rabid sway over the corporate mainstream media. Right-wing fearmongers have had far too much control of the narrative, from health care, to climate change, to Van Jones, to ACORN, and on down the line. All to the detriment of our discourse and democracy.
The concluding paragraph to this piece by Robert Reich illustrates the president's struggle to sculpt the story:
"But our President is not comfortable wielding blame. He will not give the public the larger narrative of private-sector greed, its nefarious effect on the American public at this dangerous juncture, and the private sector's corruption of the democratic process. He has so far eschewed any major plan to get corporate and Wall Street money out of politics. He can be indignant- as when he lashed out at the "fat cats" on Wall Street - but his indignance is fleeting, and it is no match for the faux indignance of the right that blames government for all that ails us."
--Robert Reich
Obama, following his often noble, sometimes futile, instinct toward reconcilliation, has thus far failed to craft a compelling narrative with the emotional, rhetorical and spiritual power that animated the campaign and electrified the world.
The success of his policies and his presidency, as well as the hopes of so many struggling people, depend on Obama's ability to wield the power story and activate a narrative that will motivate the nation.
Van Jones resigned last night.
My heart is heavy today.
Van is a personal friend and one of the most inspiring and effective visionaries of our time.
I am almost speechless about the right-wing racist attack machine. It's jaw-dropping to see the venomous comments from hate-filled know-nothings all over the web, spreading lies and distortions, calling Van a "racist" and "avowed communist."
(Most of this "communist" nonsense comes from one paragraph in a highly problematic profile of Van from the East Bay Express a couple years ago, the point of which was how Van has moved far beyond his youthful radicalism, and embraced market-based solutions to ecological and social problems.)
I am disgusted, saddened and worried about our country.
The hypocrisy of the Republicans, the right and the media is overwhelming. Do I even have to mention how many right-wing office-holders have said things 10x worse than Van's statements? Everything Van said was accurate, if occasionally provocative to a mainstream culture unaccustomed to critical thinking.
Van Jones is a hero, working for the well-being of all people. It is unimaginable to see him slandered as a "racist" by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
I am proud to stand with Van and to call him a friend.
My heart is very heavy today.
The right-wing is lying about Van Jones, and Glenn Beck is their Liar-in-Chief.
This is just the latest in a long series of attemtps to cynically swiftboat our discourse and our democracy. The untrustworthy folks who won't hesitate to smear the service of veterans like Max Cleland and John Kerry, who claim that health insurance reform is a plot to kill grandma, and Obama is a foreigner with a fake birth certificate, are now spreading ridiculous lies about the White House advisor for Green Jobs, Van Jones.
Somebody should tell these clowns that their neo-McCarthy red-scare antics are wearing thin. The American people want ideas and vision, not lies, hysteria, and racist fear-mongering.
I've known Van Jones personally for the last ten years, and ideas and vision are what he's all about. Van is quite simply a hero, committed to the well-being of all people.
To anyone who knows Van, and his work as a compassionate, visionary bridge-builder and leader, it would seem incredible that the Republican slime-slingers would attempt to slander him as a racist, communist, socialist, or whatever nonsense they're spewing...but arrogant disregard for truth has become the Republicans' only strategy. Why sweat facts when you're committed to spreading fear, and attempting to play the American people for suckers and fools?
In the last few days, right-wing dittoheads have been flooding websites with comments describing Van Jones as a "racist," and "avowed communist." These charges are simply false. The people passing along these lies don't know Van and don't know what they're talking about.
It is laughable to see these ludicrous claims that my friend of ten years "hates white people."
(Apparently, noticing or mentioning the history of racism is all it takes to be accused of hating white people.)
We progressives must stand strong when our allies and leaders are maliciously maligned. The unscrupulous mendacity of the right wing must be challenged and refuted.
Van Jones is working to create jobs for Americans of every race and background. He is a loving father, and a person of immense integrity. I am honored to stand with Van Jones in his work to build a green economy, and deeply grateful to call Van Jones my friend.
Like many of you, I wept a tear or two the night Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The tears that flowed for so many across the country gave testimony that the last 8 years have been trying. But more than that, the tears of joy and relief--springing from the depths of our national soul--testified to four centuries on the fault lines of freedom and slavery. A history filled with trauma, though not without triumphs.
November 4, 2008, was one of those triumphs.
I felt giddy when my dad called early in the evening and said, "It's over. Obama won Ohio." Though the networks wouldn't call it for another hour, I went to the fridge and popped a bottle of champagne. Channel-surfing the live TV coverage with my son, we were watching Jon Stewart's show when he told Stephen Colbert and a delirious crowd the official news: Obama would be the 44th president. Involuntarily, my chin buckled a bit, my chest quaked, and I did something like a half-sob. On TV, the usually ever-ironic Colbert was wiping his eyes.
The tears around the world were not only mirrors of the past, but also libations for the future, dedicated to the proposition that we can heal and transcend the brutal shadows of history, see the full picture of the present, and manifest a transformative tomorrow.
The election of President Obama represents a stunning moment in the history of systemic racism in this nation--a profound moment in the spiritual journey of the country, and an amazing moment in the history of the world.
But as Obama said on election night, " This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. " Looking at the past, we see that history is made by mass movements, more so than by a single person--even a prophet or a president. To reverse catastrophic climate change and runaway global warming, we need a movement. To dismantle institutional oppression, we need a movement. To save the Earth's biosphere--the sacred, fragile and disappearing web of living species--we need a movement. To end poverty, and the unnecessary, unconscionable suffering it causes, we need a movement. To transform our country from an empire into an ally, we need a movement.
We desperately need to start a new story.
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Regarding General Colin Powell's devastatingly effective endorsement of Obama, one might ask, to what extent is the power and passion of the general's public statement related to regret at being used by Bush and sacrificing his integrity at the United Nations in February of 2003?
In 2003 Powell testified at the U.N. as the character witness for George Bush's War-Based-on-Lies. In 2008 Powell appeared on "Meet The Press" and lacerated McCain like a skilled courtroom lawyer.
Obama was launched as an anti-war candidate, whereas McCain has championed the invasion of Iraq.
Is it possible that General Powell's conscience is haunted by the thought of several hundred thousand murdered Iraqis?
If the Democratic ticket could be called "Joe-Bama" or "O-Biden," then I'm suggesting this moniker for the Republican ticket:
"McPain."
Tonight, for the first time ever, an African American was nominated as a major party's presidential candidate in the United States of America, a country founded on the fault lines of freedom and slavery.
The energy was amazing in Denver's Mile High Stadium as I packed in with my dad, my brother, and some 80,000 others for Barack Obama's acceptance speech on the final night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
*************
I guess the DNC is becoming something of a family tradition.
In 2000 I spent four days at the DNC in Los Angeles, demonstrating outside the convention; marching in the streets and protesting the corporate, militarist complicity of the Democratic Party. On the last night, I went inside the convention with my dad and listened to Vice President Gore's acceptance speech. Within minutes I had gone from the streets to the suites--from protesting behind a fence, to eating shrimp in a skybox with Gore's Chief of Staff, and the family of the keynote speaker, Harold Ford, Jr.
Candidate Gore was at the peak of his populism and gave a passionate speech in which he vowed that, as president, he would work for the people, not the powerful.
The next morning I drove from L.A. to the Bay Area, winding my way up the California coast on Hwy. 1 along the blue-green Pacific. (This was the day that I moved to Oakland: a sunny Friday in mid-August of 2000. Three months before Florida and the stealing of the election. A year before September 11.)
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Roll over.
Play dead.
Beg.
I don't understand why some commentators keep floating names for McCain's VP that don't rise to the ONLY QUALIFICATION that is a prerequisite for VP: "The Heartbeat Away Test."
Does anybody think that Bobby Jindal is ready to be President of the United States? Or the Gov. of Alaska, who Bill Kristol suggested for VP?
This is of course exponentially more important for McCain, who is so old he turned George Burns on to cigars.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail, and without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to succeed.
--Abraham Lincoln
Forty years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before a microphone at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles and spoke words that would forever alter his place in history: "I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America."
Though past the peak of his popularity he was at the height of his prophetic powers. Increasingly embattled, his influence waning, with the climactic victories of the civil rights movement behind him, King first announced in the City of Angels the opposition to war that marked his spiritual growth in the last years of his life. His concern anticipated that of many Americans about the current war.
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Incumbent Senator George Allen of Virginia lost his seat and imploded his presidential aspirations with a three-syllable word (and a long racist resume).
Mel Gibson lost his cool on tequila and exposed his extreme anti-semitism to the cops, and the world.
Three drunken fratboys from the University of South Carolina, thinking they were talking to a Kazakh reporter named Borat, revealed again the banality of hatred, proudly declaring their contempt for women, admiration for slavery, and the 'powerlessness' they feel compared to "minorities."
Now Michael Richards melts down, hurling racist threats from the stage. Surely some revelation is at hand....Ghosts of the land, specters of slavemasters.
The ghost of white supremacy is woven into the machine of the current system, from the drowning of New Orleans to the war on Iraq.
What are those of us who are white prepared to do to dismantle systemic racism? What are we prepared to see, recognize, observe, hear, say, read, learn, ask, challenge, interrupt, and give up? What work are we prepared to do? What movements are we prepared to support? What actions must we take to transform our racist past into real possibility?
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