the peeps are racing ahead

in bolivia, the people are responding to the attempts by the right wing to destabilize and overthrow the morales government. they have taken to the streets by the thousands, many of them armed. morales has been made uneasy by this, for he is hopeful that things can be resolved peacefully. now, i admire morales. he is a grassroots leader, an indigenous progressive. but in this case, i am with the people. the situation in bolivia appears to be quite serious, and the only thing that will stem the flow of reaction is an informed, active, armed mass of people. again, this is the language that the right understands. they will think twice about their destabilization plans, if they know there will be hell to pay as a result. morales must learn from history here. in the 70's, allende was hopeful that the chilean system of represenative democracy would be respected, and that a non-violent reaction by his government and by the people, could succeed against the coup plotters. sadly, this was not the case. morales needs to mobilize the trade unions, the citizen groups, and so forth. he needs to purchase weapons from anyone who will sell them to him. he needs to make sure that the army is completely on his side. he needs to deal with any slanders from the media. if these actions are taken, the coup plotters will run and hide. furthermore, the other progressive latin american leaders need to agree to defend each other in case of a coup attempt. chavez, lugo, morales, and the others need to closely collaborate in the military, intelligence, political, and economic areas. i am hopeful that this is happening, and will continue to happen. morales, and anyone else for that matter, needs to be clear on the fact that the right will not respect nonviolence, they will not respect the constitution, and that they are racist and prejudiced against the poor. they do not want to share their wealth and access to resources, and they will fight to maintain their control in these areas. therefore, the left and its leaders needs to be ready to throw down at all times. and when they do, i will be in the balcony, cheering them on.

meeting today. the others seem to care. have you ever been in a meeting that seemed to you to be total bullshit, but there were two people at the meeting that were going at each other? yeah, you could feel the tension. why? why do they care? why do people care about their jobs? i can't describe how weird a feeling it is to be surrounded by people who seem to be taking their work seriously. they have no humor about it, no sense of proportion. teachers actually seem to think they are doing good. scary.

gigi gryce was a good alto player. he is forgotten, but he shouldn't be. sadly, he stopped recording after 1960. a good player.

well, it ain't the way to end a blog, but somebody needs to mention gigi gryce.