they put all the students into the gym. they all watched a movie screen. passive as ever, 2,000 of us viewed the circumscribed doings of others. a few students made banal speeches which fully displayed the failings of our educational system. someone spoke of our need for a revolution, and how the election of obama signals the start of that revolution. she then finished her talk by quoting che guevara. many others spoke of the fulfillment of king's dream, as king's ideas, excepting a few token references to his i have a dream speech, were studiously ignored. on full display were the ongoing limits of liberalism, with its celebration of identity and its ignorance of policy and power. most of the young people i work with, and their teachers, think of themselves as progressive. if they only knew how reactionary they truly are. so, the charade continues, and the conquest of the surface and superficial marches on. people cry and hold hands and speak of america being great once again, as if all we need to do is return to slavery and the conquest of mexico. the age of irony, sadly, appears to only be in its infancy, as we carry on like infants and think ourselves politically astute. millions believe peace is coming, as their hero signs off on troop increases in afghanistan. they quote che, either forgetting or never knowing, that che hoped, with all his might, for the destruction of american imperialism. people will speak of hope and change, as the streets of dc are cleared of thousands of homeless people. wouldn't look good on camera, you see. they will be temporarily housed in shelters, but where will they go when the festivities end? and speaking of those festivities, today's obscene display of american hubris is expected to cost 150 million dollars. how many of those very same homeless dc residents could have been housed if 150 million dollars had been put toward housing them? my guess is that a majority of those homeless are black men. what do they stand to gain from obama's ascent? at our assembly today, will such unpleasant facts be mentioned? not while the limits of liberalism restrain us. for you see, we long to feel good. all of us would like to win once in a while. so we imagine ourselves as obama, and not oscar grant, or the thousands of homeless black men of dc, or the millions under the bombs that our man of peace will likely sentence to death over the next 4 to 8 years.
today, we must move beyond the political silence that is the mindless cheering of pseudo change. though our applause are loud, they signify nothing but business as usual. huey's remarks about black capitalism ring in my ears, as do che's hope for america's destruction. i wander out of the assembly, and think of our real heros. i type this from the local library. at least here, i can still breathe.
from death row, this is fielding mellish
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I’ve always been a fan of George Bush, on the simple grounds that the American empire needs taking down several notches and George Jr has been the right man for the job. It was always odd to listen to liberals and leftists howling about Bush’s poor showing, how he’d reduced America’s standing in the family of nations. Did the Goths fret at the manifest weakness of the Emperor Honorius and lament the lack of a robust or intelligent Roman commander?
On Bush’s Jr’s fitful watch Latin America edged nervously out of Uncle Sam’s shadow. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia boldly assert their independence and thumb their noses at Uncle Sam. Twenty years earlier, and even when Bush Sr sat in the Oval Office, the “strong leadership” craved by Americans of all political stripes would have seen Chavez and Morales briskly toppled, their estimable reforms swiftly aborted and the kleptocrats handed back the keys to the presidential office by the CIA and their local right-wing allies.
Field -
I'm an elementary school teacher and a graduate student. I spent this morning with my fellow graduate students watching the obscene political spectacle. It was the largest void of critical thinking I've seen in a damn long time - and this is at Lewis and Clark College and Graduate school, once considered a local bastion of radicalism (and hippy-ism). I spent the afternoon with the group of 2nd graders I spend most of my days with. They cheered Obama. Two days earlier they had assembled a list of things they wanted him to do.
Among them:
Free healthcare for everyone
Ideas instead of jail to help people make better decisions
Jobs
End the wars
Protect the environment
Help homeless people
Give hungry people food
And be allowed to dive into swimming pools
Of course, Obama stands for none of this. Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader made a much, much stronger case for this agenda, the agenda 20 second graders, mostly minority and nearly all hovering around or below poverty, created after the election. And then they write a letter to Obama asking him to be more like Nader and McKinney.
It's a whole farce, the inclusion of oppressed people in the support of their own destruction. I share your disdain for the political theatre (a CBS reporter described a street corner with a huge HD TV playing the inauguration as a "political cathedral"). Educators have joined the lack of critical thinkers dominating the rest of society. Progression is now regression, a sad day in American politics.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. You posted my article on your site about MLK Day. I'd love to hear your thoughts on education.
Kenneth Libby
KennethLibby06@GMail.com
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