From the folks who would bring back child labor...

Yesterday in Wisconsin:  Republicans strip unions of collective bargaining rights.  Having previously pushed the bill as a budget balancing measure, the assembly removed all provisions from the bill that had budgetary impacts and jammed it through in a closed door session.  If it were truly about the deficit, wouldn't they have preferred the opposite? 

Just because it's not about the budget, doesn't mean it's not about the money.  It's no secret that unions give more support to the minority democrats than any other entity.  The Gop is playing politics, not balancing books. 

The unions had been willing to take the financial cuts needed to balance the budget if collective bargaining were left alone.  After all what good is a union if it can't bargain, say in a unified, collective manner?

Oh, all parts of the bill that were budget related were removed, to reduce the quorum needed to vote.

And yet it is still maintained by it's supporters that this is about budget:

“We ran on this,” Mr. Fitzgerald told the Assembly. “We were going to get the fiscal place in order. This is the first piece of the puzzle. We’re broke.”

--NYT, 03/11/11

They haven't fixed anything, much less the budget problem, they've just made it harder for working class people in their state.  

Next in Wisconsin, or coming to a state near you: 

Repeal of women's right to vote, as female voters are more likely to vote democrat.  In addition, force those fat cat women to take cuts in gender specific healthcare.  It's not like women should receive special treatment because their bodies bear the burden of propagating the species.   Budget?  ha! It' all about power grabbing.

And a** grabbing... sexual harassment and gender discrimination laws provide a disadvantage to guys looking to take what is rightfully theirs.  After all, why should a majority group need additional protection under the law. 

This country is made up of workers.  When do we get it back?

Save the Unions

We stand with the workers of Wisconsin in their efforts to preserve their right to collectively bargain as unions.

Super busy, more on the way!  Stay with me here folks.

The Rare Spare Moment

I'm still around!  The past two months I have been blessed with a bounty of work, leaving little time for anything else.  I've been regularly passing out around nine at night, whether I want to or not.  So, no time to blog.  Or to catch more than an inning or so of the Yankee game.  And I'm pretty sure my significant lady is forgetting what I look like with my eyes open.

I can't complain too much, having the most prolific few months since the economy tanked (which ain't saying much, folks) and not being sure when it will all come to a screeching halt.  I feel a little bit like the busy ant, laboring constantly for a winter that I can't sense yet, but know is just around the corner.

I'll back-post about the mosque-debacle at some point. 

Enjoy the impending fall weather, if you can!  It's the best of the year, and will be gone before you can blink twice.

The State of Things, Survival, Suffering, and Scapegoating

Bear with me on this one.  It's a bit of a rant.

I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine over beer the other night that drifted into something of a lament over the state of the world: 

I don't watch DemocracyNow anymore, even though I hold it to be one of the more honest news sources available to me.  It's just too depressing to know the state of the things.  That there are people dying, wars being waged, poverty, starvation. 

Hundreds of girls are raped everyday.  Think about what that does to the soul of humanity.  I invision the pain I felt in the hours and years after my personal experiences, and sometimes double over about what that multiplied by millions means for the world.  No wonder the world is so f*ed up.

Avoidance is a way we deal with suffering.  Boy, does it seem necessary sometimes.

Conversely, we try to have control over our own lives, at least.  The value of self-determination scolds that we are entirely responsible for our own lives. We've woven it into the fabric of our society-- and such is the blanket we often find ourselves hiding under.  We beat ourselves up over things that we cannot control because we're told that we are the only people responsible for our actions.
 This has a two-fold negative impact.
1. It prevents us from seeing what is often the truth of the matter.  Absolute self determination is a lie.  No one is an island.  The world we live in effects us.
2. It blindsides us to the fact that our actions have an effect on others.  If everyone is responsible for themselves, then what I do doesn't matter.  Again, no one is an island.

In reality, I'd say the majority of us who think about "the state of things," are walking around Cassandra-like seeing nothing but destruction ahead, and feel powerless, utterly powerless to do anything about it.

But...but...there are ways to displace that sinking feeling, while feeling like you're doing something.  A popular one these days seems to be the scapegoat.  Every recent crisis has had one: Hussein...Bush...Madoff...Hayward of BP... even Obama.

Man, it feels like we've become blood thirsty.

Though it is arguable that many of such figures might be evil-inclined in their own right, their capacity in public dialogue is mostly just as public avatars of larger ideologies.  None of the hubbub is solution-oriented.  Madoff may have screwed over hundreds of people, ruining their lives, but he's not the cause of the entire financial crisis.  Just because one guy is sitting in jail, doesn't mean the problem is fixed.  He's just a symptom.  The Bush administration may have fabricated the premise for invading a strategically advantageous country, but the man himself  is not the evil puppet master that it is so easy and delicious to make him out to be.  Again, just a symptom of the level of corruption that no one seems to notice.  Want to know who is responsible?  Follow the trail of cash.  Men do not do bad things without incentive. 

Here's the thing.  You can't tar and feather an idea. When the masses cry out for vengeance, the masters know they are hungry for blood.  So the deed is done, and all parties (think they) are satisfied.  But the root problems still exist.  Instead of peace in the world, we get the opposite.  Our inner and outer worlds are both no better.  Systemically, nothing at all changes.

I hate to end on that downer, so I'll leave with this:

Pray for peace.  Want it more than you think you want anything.  Send it out into the world every chance you get.  Make it your life's work to propagate it in each small thing you do.  It may be a drop in a rain shower, but won't the dry blade of grass that feels it be sustained?

Pastimes, Politics, Pure Summer

Midsummer malaise creeps in with transmissions of baseball, accented with the intermittent barking of distant dogs and closings of doors.  

Add in to the sensory of experience an occasional waft of--pick any two--sun smoldered trash bags, delectable dinners still in preparation, pungent smoke (you know what kind), bum piss/beer cans, or sidewalk-cart charcoal, and you've got pure summer.  You can tell the weather by the smell too; wet smells different than dry smells different than smog. 

It's hard not to notice the rotating ads prevalent on the backstop behind home plate.  Gas company follows car company.  Telling.  American.  The grass is green.  The Yankees are winning.  American.   

I'm still a little sad that they tore down the Old Stadium, and haven't been to the new building yet.  I remember my first time there; I was twelve and struck breathless.  It's presence had been in the background of countless summer Sunday afternoons on a tv in the corner, and to see it in person was grand.  Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, all played there.  But, now it's gone for a few luxury boxes.  It's almost enough to make anti-capitalism sound American, too.

Progressive Community Building

In these trying times, it is even more important to have a strong community to help push forward and manifest the solutions we desperately need.  But more than ever, it seems that real support networks are hard to come by. 
Those without jobs are without the support of a network of co-workers.  Those with limited financial means cannot socialize as readily. 

Where can progressives find community?  While many conservatives feel comfortable with the brotherhood (gender specificity half-intentional) of faith based institutions, many lefties are left alienated by the exclusivity of such groups. 

While the arts community has long been a home for progressive and eccentric thinkers, the continual slashing of public funding now leaves many dependent on corporate or independent wealth to produce.  It is a reality that art is less than accessible to those in the underclasses, but it is now also harder for real artistic communities to even exist.

Political groups are typically just that-- political utilitarian and not much else.  You have to get pretty far to the left before you find groups that take any interest in the personal as well as the political, and the radicalism of these groups often provides a hefty shock.  But in my experience, the "socialist" labeled groups tend to be more active than "liberal" labeled groups, even though they both work toward strikingly similar short term goals.

So...where do we go? 
I'm inclined to think that the first step is to think local.

So many of us connect and educate ourselves on the internet, that we forget what it's like to sit down and talk to human beings.  That's what that thing called "grassroots" began as.  It worked because it was real people.  It's so easy to get caught up in the virtual trap, or the media trap. 

Likewise problematic is the my-actions-don't-matter trap.  Local connections are a good way to be able to get fully involved and be able to become a part of the community is already around you.  Gay folks, for instance, are more likely to find community and do meaningful work at your local pride house than by joining a national PAC. 

National groups generally don't organize people very well, but fundraise (and send out chain emails, you know what I'm talking about!) quite well.  It's difficult to find a national group that wants your help in ways other than funding.  Unfortunately that's the way politics works right now, and it's hard to help but think that supporting national groups exclusively supports status quo political methods.
In the era of everything global, it's hard not to think big, dream big.  But, as people are so fond of saying, you've got to start somewhere. 

Internet networking is great, but it's often a dead end.  The internet is a tool; if you don't have anything to build on, it doesn't do you any good to have a hammer.  We need communities, people to help us though job loss, sickness, and life in general. 

Step outside and look around.  What a radical notion!

Voices

Your voice from a life past
comes back to me uninvited every so often
In songs I don't know the names of
In the smoke of a cigarette clinging to the summer haze,
Tracing out your features.
A small corner of the August sky has become our only home.
Sirius stands in for the innocent crazy shine my eyes had once.
I miss you only as I miss my former self,
a rung on a ladder,
a skipping stone,
never my destination,
but a tired wind in the trees as I wander.

Scale Tipping: Police Brutality

Time and time again, I've tried to give our criminal justice system the benefit of the doubt. I'd rationalize that most incidents were caused by singular macho (racist) jerks with something to prove. I've even been known to give the justice system more than their fair share of consideration when it comes to "political" prisoners.

But after this week, the remaining shreds of my trust in law enforcement have been all but blown away.

Not in the same way that an innocent seven year-old was blown away by the cops in Detroit this week. Nope, because I'm not black, my privileged opinion was exempt from random cop brutality. It has been an extensive mental trial that has tipped the scales of opinion against the police.  And the quantity of brutal incidents I can handle has finally reached critical mass.

Now, before I continue: It is of interest that this same fatal raid was being videotaped for reality television.
It doesn't take an analyst to realize that cop shows thrive on equating poor, nonwhite, or both with criminal. I've never seen a cop show that's busted an upper crust coke addict, raided a bourgeois home, or beaten a suit to the ground. It is about class. It's not as simple as a deterrence narrative-- but it is about us slugs on the couch, especially those just above poverty and crime, feeling better about ourselves. It's about making people feel good about making minimum wage, because they don't have to resort to illegal activities, which in turn lead to police beatings, arrest and humiliation on television. And more than that, it's about fear.

Back to the police. An innocent, seven year old girl killed, and to boot, they filed a false report about it.

If that's not enough (it is), things always hit harder close to home.
Around here, the term New York's Finest is used tongue in cheek by most everyone who isn't a politician or the sister of someone who is a cop. (I feel the need to put a caveat in here about how there are some great cops out there because I've been well conditioned.)
In county of Queens, an officer has been charged with extorting sex from women he had arrested. I hope they charge him with rape, as using one's power and blackmailing someone for sex can be nothing else. Although it was clearly rape by the strictest definition in at least one of the cases, the Daily News didn't mention the R word once, as if these women who had been or simply associated with criminals were somehow less violated by this man.

I can think of few worse violations that to be raped by someone whose duty it is to protect you!  As a woman, I have yet another thing to fear. How many more of them are there?
How many more will suffer due to law enforcement's abuse of power before someone finds reform necessary?
It is so sad that these questions are still being asked amid the fortieth anniversaries of the Kent State and Jackson State Massacres.

oh? Never heard of Jackson State? That's because the students were black.

Disarm for Peace and Human Needs

I'm finally getting the pictures up from the No Nukes march.  It was a 15,000 person colorful, international turnout. 

It was among the most vibrant political rallies of which I've ever been a part.

There was an especially large Japanese contingent, including many surviving Hibakusha, those who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.  These are the people whose voices should be heard concerning disarmament.

Fellow New Yorkers will recognize the location as 7th ave in Midtown.  We marched down 42nd to the East end of the island, where the UN is located.  The conference for the review of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is taking place there during the month of May, starting on the third.

May Day 2010

Union Square, NYC.
Photos taken from the event.

March for Worker and Immigrant Rights

It is astounding to me that in a city like New York, and in a country like the US where (except the real Native Americans) everyone is descended from immigrants that there is so much vitriol aimed at foreign born newcomers.     
The new immigration law that just passed in Arizona is both racist and wrong.  What a strategy-- deny unwanted people their civil rights so they'll leave! The mandated harassment of any minority as a solution to anything should not be acceptable.