Kitchen Sink Omelet

 Yes, it's wonderful that Democrats won the presidency in 2020. (I voted for every name that had a [D] after it.) But I think it's rather sad that those who are are happy a stellar political candidate like Kamala Harris is the VP would be horrified if Harris was the President-elect. I just hope Biden gets out of her way and lets Harris work her reformative magick. (And the idea of Kamala Harris presiding over Congress gives me a warm feeling.)

 Not my doing, but I wish it was.

 It may not seem like a Blue Tsunami.  Perhaps without the GOP sabotage of the electoral process,  combined with conservatives coordinating their sabotage with foreign state agents, the votes would have been tallied much faster to create a huge wave of voter response. Yet we have so much to be thankful for: The use of paper ballots thwarted efforts both internal and external to hijack the electoral process. The forces of white patriarchy in all their violence have been exposed; the warnings of Liberalism have been validated. Everyone now sees what we are really fighting for: freedom and equality. Rivers of dark money did not win the election. The 1% coup has failed. Marijuana legalization is trending across the country. For-profit prisons will lose much of their revenue. More senate seats will come into play in two years. The benefits of liberalism will help elect more Democrats. Mitch McConnell will face his reckoning. Biden and Harris can still do much to improve the US...

 

We've been through this before. It's the 1960's all over again. The corrupt President Richard Nixon was in power. The GOP fomented endless wars everywhere, using Russia as their excuse; rattling sabers to loot small nations. Crony capitalism exploited the American people. Vicious racism concealed beneath a veneer of "law and order." But we know what to do this time. Educate. Resist. Expose. Envision a better world. Just like then, facing the juggernaut of a crushing economy, practice patience, one step at a time, small victories here and there.

 I am slowly coming to realize a minor but crucial distinction in the struggle for human rights,  especially for civil rights in the United States.  There are those who believe that all races are equal and  must be free to live their lives where they will  contribute to our nation how they will choose  without obstacles or constraints.  Then there those who believe it is immoral to subjugate other races for social, economic, or legal gain, and so the white race must do a better job of governing our nation. This (for me) explains so many of the weird discrepancies we find in the struggle for human rights, where thousands and thousands of people take to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter, and yet conservative politicians continue to be re-elected time after time (and outside interference can't fully explain the disparity). The sad conclusion to this chain of premises is well-intentioned people will march side-by-side with fellow activists in pu...

 

I sometimes feel like the English language is some exclusive boys club, with the sig posted, "No Girlz Allowed!!!" And the design specs of the English language seem to be drafted to favor a portion of our population who are white-skinned, prefer to mate with the opposite gender, and for that purpose have a dangling proboscis that seems to serve as the nexus of this language's design. Imagine language as an automobile, and I'm lifting up the hood to find it's not an engine of syntax and tenses, but instead a 12-year old boy is glaring up at me, and he's angry that I'm interrupting his enjoyment of a porn magazine.   One thing I learned in college is language can be so much more than a male fraternity pledge hazing: with language we can both explore our world, and also create one at the same time.

SPELL TO BE SAID AGAINST HATRED by Jane Hirshfield via brainpickings Until each breath refuses  they, those, them . Until the  Dramatis Personae  of the book’s first page says, “Each one is you.” Until hope bows to its hopelessness only as one self bows to another. Until cruelty bends to its work and sees suddenly:  I . Until anger and insult know themselves burnable legs of a useless table. Until the unsurprised unbidden knees find themselves bending. Until fear bows to its object as a bird’s shadow bows to its bird. Until the ache of the solitude inside the hands, the ribs, the ankles. Until the sound the mouse makes inside the mouth of the cat. Until the inaudible acids bathing the coral. Until what feels no one’s weighing is no longer weightless. Until what feels no one’s earning is no longer taken. Until grief, pity, confusion, laughter, longing know themselves mirrors. Until by  we  we mean I, them, you, the muskrat, the tiger, the hunger. Until by...

We've had the ways and means to effectively address racism and its causes for (at least) the past 60 years. The fact we haven't been able to do so means racism is deeply interwoven into the very fabric of our society and culture, and if it is addressed, the very people who consider themselves the gatekeepers of fashion, society and culture feel threatened. Any efforts to actively confront racism and its root causes triggers legal and political violence, to shock and overawe those activists who seek to bring meaningful progressive change. If we try to make the USA a better place, we will be beaten, teargassed, and arrested—or even killed, slaughtered in the streets by agents of the state, without mercy. The ruling elite desperately—savagely—defends and embraces racism as if those in power cannot survive without it. We see now racism is not just endemic, but a necessary tool of oppression. The ultimate irony—enough to make angels weep—is racism solves nothing. Not a damn thin...